The Complete Works of James Shirley: Volume 7: The Constant Maid, The Doubtful Heir, The Gentlemen of Venice, and The Politician

The Complete Works of James Shirley contains a corpus of around 50 works, including plays, poems, grammars and prose. Shirley (1596-1666) is arguably the most significant dramatic writer of the late English Renaissance, but the last scholarly collections of his plays appeared in the nineteenth century and this Oxford edition is the first to provide a complete works. This comprehensive scholarly edition provides well-annotated modernized texts of the full range of Shirley’s remarkable output. Each work is introduced by an essay examining dating and background, sources, context and performance, and by one which discusses the textual situation and production of the early editions. An extensive footnoted commentary is provided for all texts, to help the modern reader with difficult passages, explain historical usage and customs and to clarify meaning in context. Volume 7 contains four plays written between c. 1636 and 1639, showcasing Shirley’s full generic range: The Constant Maid, The Doubtful Heir, The Gentleman of Venice and The Politician.