This book traces how Lope de Vega Carpio deployed publications and public appearances to gain powerful benefactors in the court of Philip III. It explores how the quest for influential sponsors shaped Lope’s literary practice, and how his extraordinary popularity and success as a playwright changed the court’s patterns of artistic patronage. It also asks how his increasing fame as a playwright changed his attitude toward all his literary works, contemplating the paradoxical fruits of his highly public quest for glory and status.