George Charles Moore Smith – författare

Originally written and staged in the late sixteenth century, Club Law was published for the first time more than three centuries later. A colourful satire, the play captures the spirit of a bygone era. Club Law playfully reconstructs the heated debate between the University 'Accademicks' and the town council, who were viciously at odds. Though characters' names had been changed, the play was so true to life in its depiction of contemporary politics that much uproar followed its performance at Clare Hall (now Clare College), Cambridge about 1599. Found titleless and missing some pages and scenes, the play was pieced back together by G. C. Moore Smith in 1907. A detailed introduction outlines the play's setting and historical context, and draws parallels between this satirical Elizabethan play and contemporary society. Comprehensive notes and an index are also included.

George Charles Moore Smith (1858-1940) was a renowned literary scholar who graduated from St John's College, Cambridge, with a first-class degree in the classics in 1881. In 1896 he was made professor of English language and literature at Firth College, Sheffield, and he played a key role in building up the social and academic position of the institution after it became the University of Sheffield in 1905. College Plays Performed in the University of Cambridge (1923) includes a chronological table of the Latin plays performed by scholars at the university in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The study also contains Moore Smith's 48-page introduction along with an appendix of actor lists. The introduction provides useful context to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary and theatrical culture at the University of Cambridge, discussing both the 'outlines of [the plays] histories' and the 'manner of [their] production'.