[Bibliographical Note.—The abundant literature of the drama is more satisfactorily treated in the appendices to F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama (1908), and vols. v and vi (1910) of the Cambridge History of English Literature, than in R. W. Lowe, Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature (1888), K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, English Drama: a Working Basis (1896), or W. D. Adams, Dictionary of the Drama (1904). There is an American pamphlet on Materials for the Study of the English Drama, excluding Shakespeare (1912, Newbery Library, Chicago), which I have not seen. Periodical lists of new books are published in the Modern Language Review, the Beiblatt to Anglia, and the Bulletin of the English Association, and annual bibliographies by the Modern Humanities Research Association (from 1921) and in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch. The bibliography by H. R. Tedder in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) s.v. Shakespeare, A. C. Shaw, Index to the Shakespeare Memorial Library (1900–3), and W. Jaggard, Shakespeare Bibliography (1911), on which, however, cf. C. S. Northup in J. G. P. xi. 218, are also useful.

W. W. Greg, Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers (1911, M. S. C. i. 324), traces from the publishers’ advertisements of the Restoration a catena of play-lists in E. Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675), W. Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687), G. Langbaine, Momus Triumphans (1688) and Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), C. Gildon, Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (1698), W. R. Chetwood, The British Theatre (1750), E. Capell, Notitia Dramatica (1783), and the various editions of the Biographica Dramatica from 1764 to 1812. More recent are J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Dictionary of Old English Plays (1860), and W. C. Hazlitt, Manual of Old English Plays (1892); but all are largely superseded by W. W. Greg, A List of English Plays (1900) and A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. (1902). His account of Warburton’s collection in The Bakings of Betsy (Library, 1911) serves as a supplement. A few plays discovered later than 1900 appeared in an Irish sale of 1906 (cf. Jahrbuch, xliii. 310) and in the Mostyn sale of 1919 (cf. t.p. facsimiles in Sotheby’s sale catalogue). For the problems of the early prints, the Bibliographical Note to ch. xxii should be consulted.

I ought to add that the notices of the early prints of plays in this and the following chapter lay no claim to minute bibliographical erudition, and that all deficiencies in this respect are likely to be corrected when the full results of Dr. Greg’s researches on the subject are published.

The fundamental works on the history of the drama are A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (1875, 1899), F. G. Fleay, Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama (1891), F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama (1908), the Cambridge History of English Literature, vols. v and vi (1910), and W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, vols. iv, v (1909, 1916). These and others, with the relevant periodicals, are set out in the General Bibliographical Note (vol. i); and to them may be added F. S. Boas, Shakspere and his Predecessors (1896), B. Matthews, The Development of the Drama (1904), F. E. Schelling, English Drama (1914), A. Wynne, The Growth of English Drama (1914). Less systematic collections of studies are L. M. Griffiths, Evenings with Shakespeare (1889), J. R. Lowell, Old English Dramatists (1892), A. H. Tolman, The Views about Hamlet (1904), C. Crawford, Collectanea (1906–7), A. C. Swinburne, The Age of Shakespeare (1908). The older critical work of Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and others cannot be neglected, but need not be detailed here.

Special dissertations on individual plays and playwrights are recorded in the body of this chapter. A few of wider scope may be roughly classified; as dealing with dramatic structure, H. Schwab, Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit Shakespeares (1896), F. A. Foster, Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620 (1911, E. S. xliv. 8); with types of drama, H. W. Singer, Das bürgerliche Trauerspiel in England (1891), J. Seifert, Wit-und Science Moralitäten (1892), J. L. McConaughty, The School Drama (1913), E. N. S. Thompson, The English Moral Plays (1910), R. Fischer, Zur Kunstentwickelung der englischen Tragödie bis zu Shakespeare (1893), A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), F. E. Schelling, The English Chronicle Play (1902), L. N. Chase, The English Heroic Play (1903), C. G. Child, The Rise of the Heroic Play (1904, M. L. N. xix), F. H. Ristine, English Tragicomedy (1910), C. R. Baskervill, Some Evidence for Early Romantic Plays in England (1916, M. P. xiv. 229, 467), L. M. Ellison, The Early Romantic Drama at the English Court (1917), H. Smith, Pastoral Influence in the English Drama (1897, M. L. A. xii. 355). A. H. Thorndike, The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605 (1900, M. L. N. xiv. 228), J. Laidler, History of Pastoral Drama in England (1905, E. S. xxxv. 193), W. W. Greg, Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (1906); with types of plot and characterization, H. Graf, Der Miles Gloriosus im englischen Drama (1891), E. Meyer, Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama (1897), G. B. Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shakespeare (1900), L. W. Cushman, The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare (1900), E. Eckhardt, Die lustige Person im älteren englischen Drama (1902), F. E. Schelling, Some Features of the Supernatural as Represented in Plays of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James (1903, M. P. i), H. Ankenbrand, Die Figur des Geistes im Drama der englischen Renaissance (1906), F. G. Hubbard, Repetition and Parallelism in the Earlier Elizabethan Drama (1905, M. L. A. xx), E. Eckhardt, Die Dialekt-und Ausländertypen des älteren englischen Dramas (1910–11), V. O. Freeburg, Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama (1915); with Quellenforschung and foreign influences, E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Jonson’s, Marston’s, und Beaumont und Fletcher’s (1895), Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Chapman’s, Massinger’s und Ford’s (1897), Zur Quellen-Kunde der Stuarts-Dramen (1896, Archiv, xcvii), Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der englischen Litteratur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (1892), L. L. Schücking, Studien über die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komödie zur italienischen bis Lilly (1901), A. Ott, Die italienische Novelle im englischen Drama von 1600 (1904), W. Smith, The Commedia dell’ Arte (1912), M. A. Scott, Elizabethan Translations from the Italian (1916), A. L. Stiefel, Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England unter den ersten Stuarts (1890), Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England (1897, Archiv, xcix), L. Bahlsen, Spanische Quellen der dramatischen Litteratur besonders Englands zu Shakespeares Zeit (1893, Z. f. vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte, N. F. vi), A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious Impertinent in English Drama (1902, M. L. N. xvii), J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Cervantes in England (1905), J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy (1893), O. Ballweg, Das klassizistische Drama zur Zeit Shakespeares (1909), O. Ballmann, Chaucers Einfluss auf das englische Drama (1902, Anglia, xxv), R. M. Smith, Froissart and the English Chronicle Play (1915); with the interrelations of dramatists, A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare (1901), E. Koeppel, Studien über Shakespeares Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker (1905), Ben Jonson’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker (1906).

The special problem of the authorship of the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha is dealt with in the editions thereof described below, and by Halliwell-Phillipps (ii. 413), Ward (ii. 209), R. Sachs, Die Shakespeare zugeschriebenen zweifelhaften Stücke (1892, Jahrbuch, xxvii), and A. F. Hopkinson, Essays on Shakespeare’s Doubtful Plays (1900). The analogous question of the possible non-Shakespearian authorship of plays or parts of plays published as his is too closely interwoven with specifically Shakespearian literature to be handled here; J. M. Robertson, in Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus? (1905), Shakespeare and Chapman (1917), The Shakespeare Canon (1922), is searching; other dissertations are cited under the plays or playwrights concerned. The attempts to use metrical or other ‘tests’ in the discrimination of authorship or of the chronology of work have been predominantly applied to Shakespeare, although Beaumont and Fletcher (vide infra) and others have not been neglected. The broader discussions of E. N. S. Thompson, Elizabethan Dramatic Collaboration (1909, E. S. xl. 30) and E. H. C. Oliphant, Problems of Authorship in Elizabethan Dramatic Literature (1911, M. P. viii, 411) are of value.

To the general histories of Elizabethan literature named in the General Bibliographical Note may be added Chambers’s Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1901–3), E. Gosse, Modern English Literature (1897), G. Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature (1900), A. Lang, English Literature from ‘Beowulf’ to Swinburne (1912), W. Minto, Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley (1874), G. Saintsbury, Elizabethan Literature (1887), E. Gosse, The Jacobean Poets (1894), T. Seccombe and J. W. Allen, The Age of Shakespeare (1903), F. E. Schelling, English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare (1910); and for the international relations, G. Saintsbury, The Earlier Renaissance (1901), D. Hannay, The Later Renaissance (1898), H. J. C. Grierson, The First Half of the Seventeenth Century (1906), C. H. Herford, The Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (1886), L. Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England (1902), S. Lee, The French Renaissance in England (1910), J. G. Underhill, Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors (1899).

I append a chronological list of miscellaneous collections of plays, covering those of more than one author. A few of minimum importance are omitted.

(a) Shakespeare Apocrypha

1664. Mr William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. The Third Impression. And unto this Impression is added seven Playes, never before printed in Folio, viz. Pericles Prince of Tyre. The London Prodigall. The History of Thomas Ld Cromwell. Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine. For P[hilip] C[hetwinde]. [A second issue of the Third Folio (F3) of Shakespeare. I cite these as ‘The 7 Plays’.]