Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture: A Companion to the Collected Works

Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture is not only a companion to The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, which every scholar of Renaissance literature will find indispensable. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the book in early modern Europe. The book is divided into two parts. The first part, on 'The Culture', situates Middleton within an historical and theoretical overview of early modern textual production, reproduction, circulation, and reception. An introductory essay by Gary Taylor ('The Order of Persons') surveys lists of persons written by or connected to Middleton, using the complex relationship between textual and social orders to trace the evolution of textual culture in England during the 'Middleton century' (1580-1679). Ten original essays then focus on Middleton's connections to different aspects of textual culture in that century: authorship (by MacD. P. Jackson), manuscripts (Harold Love), legal texts (Edward Geiskes), censorship (Richard Burt), printing (Adrian Weiss), visual texts (John Astington), music (Andrew Sabol), stationers and living authors (Cyndia Clegg), posthumous publishing (Maureen Bell), and early readers (John Jowett). The second part, 'The Texts', supplies the documentation for claims made in the first part. This includes detailed evidence for the canon and chronology of Middleton's works in all genres, greatly extending previous scholarship, and using the latest corpus-based attribution techniques. A full editorial apparatus is supplied for each item in The Collected Works: an Introduction, which summarizes and extends previous scholarship, is followed by textual notes, recording substantive departures from the control-text, variants between early texts, press-variants, discussions of emendations, and (for plays) an exact transcription of all original stage directions. Cross-references make it easy to move between the two volumes. This authoritative account of the early texts includes some extraordinarily complicated cases, which have never before been systematically collated: 'Hence, all you vain delights' (the most popular song lyric from the Renaissance stage), The Two Gates of Salvation, The Peacemaker, and A Game at Chess (the most complex editorial problem in early modern drama, with eight extant texts and numerous reports of the early performances).

Table of Contents:
Part I: The Culture Gary Taylor: Persons Mack. P. Jackson: Early Modern Authorship: Canons and Chronologies Richard Burt: (Un)Censoring in Detail: Middleton, Fetishism, and the Regulation of Dramatic Discourse Edward Gieskes: 'From Wronger and Wronged Have I Fee': Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Legal Culture Harold Love: Middleton, Oral Culture, and the Manuscript Economy John H. Astington: Visual Texts: Middleton and Prints Adrian Weiss: Manufactured Middleton: Texts in Print Cyndia Susan Clegg: Taking Liberties, Keeping Privileges: The Retail Book Trade, the State, and the Estate of Middleton, 1597-1627 Maureen Bell: Booksellers without an Author, 1627-1685 John Jowett: Fit for your Companies: Some Seventeenth-Century Readers Part II: The Texts Editorial Procedures Works Cited Textual Apparatus THE TEXTS Part III: Useful Middleton Links Music from Middleton's Texts edited by Andrew Sabol Appendix I: Canon and Chronology Appendix II: Early Allusions to Middleton's Work Indexes

About the Author :
Gary Taylor is George Matthew Edgar Professor of English at Florida State University. He is general editor of prize-winning, innovative Oxford editions of Shakespeare's Complete Works and Middleton's Collected Works, as well as a prize-winning book on Shakespeare in performance, Moment by Moment by Shakespeare. In addition to his twenty-two scholarly books, he has written for newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, been widely interviewed on radio and television, and spoken at major theatres in the UK, USA, and Canada. His reconstruction of The History of Cardenio has been developed through workshops and readings at many theatres, including Shakespeare's Globe (London), the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, the American Shakespeare Center, and the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington D.C John Lavagnino studied physics at Harvard University and American literature at Brandeis University, where he wrote his dissertation on Vladimir Nabokov. He has worked in atmospheric science at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and in electronic publishing for numerous organizations. He is now Senior Lecturer in Humanities Computing at King's College London, and is working on the digital Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700.

Review :
`elaborately cross-referenced ... a good deal of effort has gone into making the Companion as user-friendly as possible.' Michael Neill LRB `The Oxford Middleton is a monumental achievement. Gary Taylor and his team of scholars have managed to do for Thomas Middleton what Heminges and Condell did for Shakespeare in the 1623 First Folio: they've collected a great playwright's work in a landmark edition, one that enables us to appreciate afresh an extraordinary literary career. Taken together, The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton and its companion volume Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture, provide an essential guide to matters at the heart of the English literary world in the early seventeenth century, from authorship and collaboration to censorship, civic pageantry, and the London book trade.' James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and Professor of English, Columbia University `a monumental work of scholarship' Jonathan Bate, Times Literary Supplement `It is not, I think, overstating the case to say that the release of this edition feels epochal, and the sense of recognition at what it has added, as well as what it will inspire over the ensuing decades, is already palpable. The Oxford Middleton is a truly momentous work, and it is now in the hands of you, the Great Variety of Readers.' Will Sharpe, The Shakespeare Bookshop Newsletter `All of us who care deeply about the history of English drama welcome with great enthusiasm and excitement the publication of the Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, a major achievement in textual scholarship that represents the collective expertise and critical wisdom of scholars from all over the world. Gary Taylor and his many collaborators have given us a new and remarkably versatile Thomas Middleton-a great tragic playwright, a brilliant creator of sly and cynical urban comedies, a thoroughly gifted man of the theater and citizen of London. With this massive collected edition, the history of English drama is much more complete and we can hope for many more professional productions of these neglected plays.' Gail Paster, Director, Folger Shakespeare Library `It is hard to exaggerate the scale of the Oxford Middleton particularly since this is the kind of scholarship which is--in its diversity and eclecticism--designed to open up debate rather than close it off. It is a colossal achievement representing a decisive expansion of Renaissanc studies which will percolate throughout scholarship and teaching. But what is, perhaps, most exciting, is that the collection must surely generate a rediscovery of these eminently stageable plays in the theatre.' Andrew James Hartley, Editor, Shakespeare Bulletin `rigorous and informative volume' SHARP News Bulletin `The publication of The Complete Works of Middleton will be a major event for all those who care about the theatre of Shakespeare's time. The scholarship is meticulous, the commentary is fascinating and the international team of experts displays the field of Renaissance Drama studies at its finest. In modern times, productions of The Changeling and Women Beware Women have shown the dark side of sex and power that Shakespeare touched on but never fully explored. The Complete Works now shows us the full range of Middleton's talent for comedy and social drama and, controversially, the full extent of his collaboration with and development of Shakespeare's plays.' Kathleen E. McLuskie, The Shakespeare Institute `Few editorial projects have been as eagerly anticipated as the Oxford Middleton, which will utterly transform how we understand early modern drama, both in the classroom and in our research. As with Shakespeare, Gary Taylor and his team have set a new gold standard for textual editing and interpretive criticism, leaping from the 19th century to the 21st - finally an edition that captures Middleton's tremendous accomplishments.' Henry Turner, Rutgers University, New Jersey, author of The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts, 1580-1630 (Oxford, 2006)