Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York Representative English Comedies, Vol. I _FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO SHAKESPEARE_ With introductory essays and notes. An historical view of our earlier comedy and other monographs by various writers under the general editorship of CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, LITT.D., LL.D., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of California _Cloth, 8vo, 686 pages, $2.00_ The aim of this volume and those which will follow is to indicate the development of a literary type by a selection of its representative specimens, arranged in the order of their production and accompanied by critical and historical studies. So little has been scientifically determined concerning evolution or permutation in literature that the more specific the field of inquiry, the more trustworthy are the results attained,--hence the limitation of this research not merely to a genus like the drama, but to one of its species. What is here presented to the public differs from histories of the drama in that it is more restricted in scope and that it substantiates the narrative of a literary growth by reproducing the data necessary to an induction; it differs from editions of individual plays and dramatists, on the other hand, because it attempts to concatenate its text by a running commentary upon the characteristics of the species under consideration as they successively appear. It is an illustrated, if not certified, history of English comedy. CONTENTS I. AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH COMEDY. By Charles Mills Gayley. II. JOHN HEYWOOD: CRITICAL ESSAY. By Alfred W. Pollard. Edition of the _Play of the Wether_. The same. Edition of a _Mery Play between Johan Johan, Tyb._ The same. III. NICHOLAS UDALL: CRITICAL ESSAY. By Ewald Flügel. Edition of _Roister Doister_. The same. Appendix on Various Matters. The same. IV. WILLIAM STEVENSON: CRITICAL ESSAY. By Henry Bradley. Edition of _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_. The same. Appendix. The same. V. JOHN LYLY: CRITICAL ESSAY. By George P. Baker. Edition of _Alexander and Campaspe_. The same. VI. GEORGE PEELE: CRITICAL ESSAY. By F. B. Gummere. Edition of _The Old Wives’ Tale_. The same. Appendix. The same. VII. GREENE’S PLACE IN COMEDY: A MONOGRAPH. By G. E. Woodberry. VIII. ROBERT GREENE: HIS LIFE, AND THE ORDER OF HIS PLAYS. By Charles Mills Gayley. Edition of the _Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon_. The same. Appendix on Greene’s Versification. The same. IX. HENRY PORTER: CRITICAL ESSAY. By Charles Mills Gayley. Edition of The _Two Angry Women of Abington_. The same. X. _Shakespeare as a Comic Dramatist._ By Edward Dowden. INDEX. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York