A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 1

These are not the plays you're taught in school. They are older, stranger, and nearly lost to history. This volume rescues four rare theatrical works from the late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, plays that have languished in obscurity for centuries, their pages unmapped by modern readers. Here you'll find "The Tragedy of Nero," a Roman spectacle of imperial vanity and blood-soaked ambition; "The Mayde's Metamorphosis," a jewel-box romance of transformation and desire; "The Martyr'd Souldier," with its grave examination of faith under siege; and "The Noble Souldier," a study of honor and betrayal on the battlefield. Together they form a portrait of a theatrical world in wild ferment, before Shakespeare monopolized the imagination. This is where English drama was invented, messy and magnificent, and these texts are your invitation to witness its first flames.