This work combines a study of pre-Shakespearean theatre with an edition of the known works of Richard Edwards, a poet beloved by his contemporaries and regarded as the most influential dramatist before Shakespeare. The book includes fully annotated critical editions of Edward’s play, Damon and Pythias , poems and songs (some newly ascribed), and a detailed account of the staging of his spectacular lost play, Palamon and Arcyte , performed before Queen Elizabeth I at Oxford, with eye-witness accounts of her reactions. It illustrates a new approach to the modernization of dramatic poetry and contains a re-evaluation of the role of theatre and poetry during a particularly turbulent and dangerous period in English history.