Folio Imitator
A folio of the plays of Francis Beaumont (1585-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) appeared in 1647, clearly in imitation of the 1623 and 1632 Shakespeare Folios. Perhaps the publisher and printer hoped to capitalize on them. The publication of the collaborative and single works of Beaumont and Fletcher in a folio volume years after their deaths, in the midst of a Civil War with the theaters closed, may seem somewhat daring if not foolhardy. But it did tap into a popularity that Beaumont and Fletcher enjoyed throughout the seventeenth century. Three of their collaborative plays, A King and No King, Philaster, and The Maid’s Tragedy, remained especially popular. By 1613, Fletcher, who had collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen, had replaced him as chief dramatist for the King’s Men.
Because the compilers of the 1647 Folio had overlooked a fair number of plays, a new publishing syndicate decided to issue a more “complete” edition. The 1679 Folio, on display here, seeks to correct that omission. It added 18 more plays, leading to a large volume of 53 plays in which Fletcher wrote at least 16 plays alone, and Beaumont, only one. The rest are collaborations, some with other dramatists.
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Title page
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. London, 1679.
The 1679 Folio differs from the 1647 one by boasting at the top that the volume contains “Fifty Comedies and Tragedies.” Although the 1647 one announced “Never printed before,” here the printer claims, “All in one Volume.” The title page also notes the inclusion of “the Songs to each Play,” missing from 1647. The printer John Maycock prepared the volume for three booksellers: John Martin, Henry Herringman, and Richard Mariot. They offer an address, “The Booksellers to the Reader” in which they distinguish this folio from the earlier one, and they observe that they were “very desirous they [the plays] might come forth as Correct as might be.” The booksellers also characterize Beaumont and Fletcher as “a Pair of the greatest Wits and most ingenious Poets of their Age.”
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Catalogue of All the Plays
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. London, 1679.
The Catalogue in this 1679 Folio lists all of the plays contained in this new edition. The printer highlights the plays that have been added by noting them with a * to the right of the title—an early idea of marketing. The list includes, as an addition, Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Two Noble Kinsmen. Surprisingly, sole-authored plays by Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess (published 1610), and Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (published 1613), are only now included, decades later.
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The Woman’s Prize
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. London, 1679.
The Woman’s Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed, first published in 1613, and exclusively by Fletcher, has the distinction of being the only play in Shakespeare’s lifetime to have been an explicit response to one of his plays. The Spencer Library copy of the 1679 Folio contains a handwritten note in which the annotator observes the connection to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, certainly an early public notice of this link. In a sense, Fletcher turns Shakespeare’s play upside down with the woman in charge, a kind of rewriting of Katherine’s role. Fletcher’s play has had several performances in the early part of this century, including at the Globe Theatre.
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The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. London, 1679.
This exceptionally creative comedy by Beaumont received an unfavorable audience response at the first recorded performance. Perhaps the theatergoers were perplexed by the several plots of The Knight of the Burning Pestle. This amusing play satirizes social custom, theater practice, and literary romance. When the play begins, a Grocer and his Wife suddenly and unexpectedly climb on stage and reshape the narrative, making room for their apprentice Rafe to set out on a romantic quest to save a damsel in distress. This play text also has a handwritten note, presumably by the same person, suggesting correctly that the source for the Prologue derives from a play by John Lyly, Sapho and Phao.