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''The Merry Devil of Edmonton'' is an
Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...
-era stage play; a comedy about a magician, Peter Fabell, nicknamed the Merry Devil. It was at one point attributed to
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, but is now considered part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha.


Date and text

Scholars have conjectured dates of authorship for the play as early as 1592, though most favor a date in the 1600–4 period. ''The Merry Devil'' enters the historical record in 1604, when it is mentioned in a contemporary work called the ''Black Booke''. The play was entered into the
Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...
on 22 October 1607, and published the next year, in a
quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
printed by Henry Ballard for the bookseller Arthur Johnson (Q1 – 1608). Five more quartos appeared through the remainder of the century: Q2 – 1612; Q3 – 1617; Q4 – 1626; Q5 – 1631; and Q6 – 1655. All of these quartos were anonymous.


Shakespearean authorship

Publisher
Humphrey Moseley Humphrey Moseley (died 31 January 1661) was a prominent London publisher and bookseller in the middle seventeenth century. Life Possibly a son of publisher Samuel Moseley, Humphrey Moseley became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Co ...
obtained the rights to the play and re-registered it on 9 September 1653 as a work by
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. Moseley's attribution to Shakespeare was repeated by Edward Archer in his 1656 play list ee:_''The_Old_Law''.html" ;"title="The_Old_Law.html" ;"title="ee: ''The Old Law">ee: ''The Old Law''">The_Old_Law.html" ;"title="ee: ''The Old Law">ee: ''The Old Law'' and by Francis Kirkman in his list of 1661. The play was bound with ''Fair Em'' and ''Mucedorus'' in a book titled "Shakespeare. Vol. I" in the library of Charles II of England, Charles II. As its publishing history indicates, the play was popular with audiences; it is mentioned by
Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
in the Prologue to his play '' The Devil is an Ass.'' While ''Merry Devil'' was a King's Men play and Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, it does not have the distinctive marks of Shakespeare's style. Individual 19th-century critics attempted to attribute the play to
Michael Drayton Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. He died on 23 December 1631 in London. Early life Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost noth ...
or to
Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece '' A Woman Killed with Kindness'', ...
; but their attributions have not been judged credible by other scholars. William Amos Abrams proposed Thomas Dekker as the play's author in his 1942 edition; Dekker scholars Gerald J. Eberle and M. T. Jones-Davies agreed, though Fredson Bowers, the editor of Dekker's ''Dramatic Works'', was unpersuaded by the evidence offered and did not include it in his edition.


Performance history

The play was performed at Court on 8 May 1608; it was also one of the twenty plays that the King's Men acted at Court in the Christmas season of 1612–13 during the festivities celebrating the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of King
James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) * James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) * James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334– ...
, with
Frederick V, Elector Palatine Frederick V (german: link=no, Friedrich; 26 August 1596 – 29 November 1632) was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both ...
. Professional productions in the modern age have been rare, though a radio adaptation was produced by the BBC in 1957, and an original practice performance by Bad Quarto Productions at the 2010 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.


References


Sources

* Chambers, E. K. ''The Elizabethan Stage.'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923. * Kozlenko, William, ed. ''Disputed Plays of William Shakespeare.'' Hawthorn Books, 1974. * Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. ''The Popular School: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1975. * Tucker Brooke, C. F., ed. ''The Shakespeare Apocrypha.'' Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1908.


External links


''The Merry Devil'' eText
at
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libra ...
{{Authority control Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The