Printed Drama in the English Civil Wars and the Interregnum

Abstract

This entry surveys dramatic publication during the English civil wars and the Interregnum (1642–60), when commercial playing was outlawed. It begins with contextual information about the period’s political conflicts and their effects on the book trade at large. It then continues to its primary subject: the publication of English commercial drama—plays written between 1576 and 1642—in the 1640s and 1650s. It discusses the publication of full-length plays in single-text and collected editions. These include reprints of older Elizabethan plays and the publication of “new” (i.e., previously unprinted) commercial plays. The latter reflects the dramatic book market’s reorientation towards dramatic novelty. The shift reflects the unprecedented availability of dramatic manuscripts and increased demands for fresh drama caused by diminished theatrical production during parliamentary rule. The entry discusses Beaumont and Fletcher’s collected works in folio, Comedies and Tragedies (1647), arguably the most important dramatic publication of this period, printed by Humphrey Moseley, perhaps the period’s most significant dramatic stationer. In the mid-seventeenth century, the page usurped the stage as the primary locus for dramatic production and consumption. The era’s innovative dramatic publications capitalized on the press’s new dominance. The copious dramatic prefaces, dedications, and other paratexts in contemporary volumes made legible and strengthened political, social, and intellectual coteries dispersed by contemporary conflicts. These paratexts also reflect on drama’s status during a moment when theaters were quieted. Additionally, the period witnessed new dramatic forms in print: the serialized play collection, the commonplace book composed exclusively of dramatic extracts, and the comprehensive catalog of all English plays in print. These new forms exemplify English drama’s rising prestige and its redefinition as an artefact of the printing press. The entry concludes by considering the enduring legacy of printed drama of the civil wars and the Interregnum on dramatic production and criticism.