Elizabethan Drama II

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.

Volume XLVII features a selection of Elizabethan drama spanning the breadth of that newly mature domain:

The Shoemaker's Holiday, a 1599 comedy of manners and romance by THOMAS DEKKER (1572-1632)
The Alchemist, the 1610 play considered the best comedy by BEN JONSON (1572-1637)
Philaster, by FRANCIS BEAUMONT (1584-1616) and JOHN FLETCHER (1579-1625), a tragicomedy dating from around 1610
The Duchess of Malfi, by JOHN WEBSTER (c. 1580-c. 1634), a violent, tragic horror tale
A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the 1625 satire by PHILIP MASSINGER (1583-1640), which invented a villain-Sir Giles Overreach-who endured to become a 19th-century icon