THE FATAL DOWRY BY PHILIP MASSINGER AND NATHANIEL FIELD EDITED, FROM THE ORIGINAL QUARTO, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY CHARLES LACY LOCKERT, JR. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, KENYON COLLEGE PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, PA. 1918 Accepted by the Department of English, June, 1916 PREFACE This critical edition of _The Fatal Dowry_ was undertaken as a Thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. at Princeton University. It was compiled under the guidance and direction of Professor T. M. Parrott of that institution, and every page of it is indebted to him for suggestion, advice, and criticism. I can but inadequately indicate the scope of his painstaking and scholarly supervision, and can even less adequately express my appreciation of his ever-patient aid, which alone made this work possible. I desire also to acknowledge my debt to Professor J. Duncan Spaeth of Princeton University, for his valuable suggestions in regard to the presentation of my material, notably in the Introduction; also to Professor T. W. Baldwin of Muskingum College and Mr. Henry Bowman, both of them then fellow graduate students of mine at Princeton, for assistance on several occasions in matters of special inquiry; and to Dr. M. W. Tyler of the Princeton Department of History for directing me in clearing up a lego-historical point; and finally to the libraries of Yale and Columbia Universities for their kind loan of needed books. INTRODUCTION In the Stationer’s Register the following entry is recorded under the date of “30º Martij 1632:” CONSTABLE Entred for his copy vnder the hands of Sir HENRY HERBERT and master _SMITHWICKE_ warden a Tragedy called _the ffatall Dowry_. Vj d. In the year 1632 was published a quarto volume whose title-page was inscribed: _The Fatall Dowry_: a Tragedy: As it hath been often Acted at the Private House in Blackfriars, by his Majesties Servants. Written by P. M. and N. F. London, Printed by John Norton, for Francis Constable, and are to be sold at his shop at the Crane, in Pauls Churchyard. 1632. That the initials by which the authors are designated stand for Philip Massinger and Nathaniel Field is undoubted. LATER TEXTS There is no other seventeenth century edition of _The Fatal Dowry_. It was included in various subsequent collections, as follows: I. _The Works of Philip Massinger_--edited by Thomas Coxeter, 1759--re-issued in 1761, with an introduction by T. Davies. II. _The Dramatic Works of Philip Massinger_--edited by John Monck Mason, 1779. III. _The Plays of Philip Massinger_--edited by William Gifford, 1805. There was a revised second edition in 1813, which is still regarded as the Standard Massinger Text, and was followed in subsequent editions of Gifford.