Series: World's Classics.

PLAYS: 1. Every Man in His Humour; 2. Sejanus; 3. Volpone, or the Fox; 4. The Alchemist; Bartholomew Fair. The five plays in this collection represent the complexity of Jonson's art as a playwright. His first important play, Every Man in his Humour, performed in its first version in 1598 and later revised so that an English setting replaced an Italian one, represents the high point of the 'humours' comedy with which Jonson is always associated. Sejanus, acted in 1603, is an experiment in tragedy on classical principles. It is a disturbing analysis of political power, and caused Jonson to be summoned before the Privy Council. Volpone (performed in 1606) and The Alchemist (performed in 1610) are Jonson's most distinctive comedies, set among a world of rogues and dissemblers, with a strong moral and satirical intention, which exposes trickery and yet seems also to delight in it, and allows no illusion to survive. The later comedy Bartholomew Fair, acted in 1614, is more tolerant of human weakness as it is more relaxed in form, and is now perhaps the most attractive of Jonson's plays. The text is that of the modernized version of Herford and Simpson's edition (Oxford, 1925-52) published in 'The Complete Plays', ed. G. A. Wilkes.