Persia in Early Modern English Drama, 1530–1699

Chloë Houston is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading, UK.

• 1. Introduction: the imagined empire.- 2. ‘In this noble region’: politics and counsel in The Godly Queene Hester (Anonymous, c. 1530).- 3. ‘[A]dvice unto a Prince’: kingship and counsel in Kyng Daryus (Anonymous, 1565) and Cambises (Thomas Preston, c. 1560).- 4. ‘A crown enchas’d with pearl and gold’: wealth and absolute rule in The Warres of Cyrus (Richard Farrant, 1576-80) and Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2 (Christopher Marlowe, 1587-8).- ‘I wish to be none other but as he’: friendship and counsel in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) by John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins and contemporary closet drama.- 6. ‘Read[ing] philosophy to a king’: ideals of monarchy in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636).- 7. ‘[R]eally acted in Persia’: counsel, regicide and restoration in John Denham, The Sophy (1642) and Robert Baron, Mirza (1655).- 8. To ‘dispose of Crowns’: Conversion, the Authorityof Monarchy and the Issue of Succession: Elkanah Settle’s Cambyses (1667).- 9. ‘The king, who loves the Persian mode’: tyranny and excess in The Rival Queens (1677).- 10. ‘[D]evour’d by Luxury’: Gender, Governance and Absolute Kingship in John Crowne’s Darius, King of Persia (1688) and Colley Cibber’s Xerxes (1699).

“Chloë Houston’s Persia in Early Modern English Drama, 1530–1699: The Imagined Empire, part of the New Transculturalisms, 1400–1800 series, encapsulates the essence of earlier scholars and offers a detailed analysis of the evolving portrayals of Persia in early modern English literature. ... This well-structured monograph analyzes fourteen dramatic works, either well-known or anonymous, and is divided into three sections according to the historical periods they reflected.” (Yaxin Shi, Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 56 (2), 2025)