A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 07

This volume gathers a handful of rarely staged early English dramas, each restored from surviving manuscripts and early printed editions. The editor has aligned the texts chronologically, added scholarly notes, and incorporated observations from centuries of commentary, making the pieces approachable for modern ears. Listeners will hear the raw rhythms of Elizabethan and Jacobean verse, complete with the occasional spelling quirks that remind us of their original hand.

Among the works, the tragic romance of Tancred and Gismunda opens with a desperate plea for a joint burial, setting a tone of fierce devotion and brutal loss. The language is lush yet urgent, letting the audience taste the bitter conflict between duty and passion that drives the doomed lovers. Complementary pieces such as The Wounds of Civil War, Mucedorus, and The Two Angry Women of Abington round out the collection, offering a vivid panorama of love, war, and comic mischief in the early modern stage.