Contents - BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD - INDEX TO CHAPTERS - INDEX TO BIBLIOGRAPHIES - INDEX TO AUTHORS

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.

Preface

<PARA=”1″>TWO publications which are of exceptional value to students of English drama have appeared during the closing stages of the production of Volumes V and VI of the present work. It has been barely possible to add to the text and bibliographies a few references to part I, volume IV of the standard history of modern drama by Professor Creizenach, while Professor Feuillerat’s illuminating work on John Lyly was not published until after the greater part of both these volumes had gone through the press.<PARA=”2″>To Professor F. E. Schelling’s Eliabethan Drama, the editors are greatly indebted, and they also desire to place on record a general acknowledgment of the use made in these volumes of Dr. W. W. Greg’s Lists of Plays and Masques, and of his edition of Henslowe’s diary.<PARA=”3″>The editors hope that readers of these volumes will find that the chapters supplement each other in particular passages, more especially in those which seek to summarise certain growths, such as the chronicle history, the domestic drama, and the pastoral drama. Although an attempt has been made, wherever possible, to avoid discrepancies with regard to the dates of certain plays or to the shares of dramatists in plays written in conjunction, it is inevitable, in a work of composite authorship, that some such discrepancies should remain. The cross references which the editors have added in their footnotes will, it is hoped, enable students readily to test for themselves the nature of the evidence upon which individual conclusions are based. CAMBRIDGE May, 1910.