Ben Jonson folios

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The folio collections of Ben Jonson's works published in the seventeenth century were crucial developments in the publication of English literature and English Renaissance drama. The first folio collection, issued in 1616,[1] treated stage plays as serious works of literature instead of popular ephemera—at the time, a controversial position. The 1616 folio stood as a precedent for other play collections that followed—most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623, but also the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, the first collection of Marston's plays (1633), and other collections that were important in preserving the dramatic literature of the age for subsequent generations.


The first folio, 1616
The first Jonson folio of 1616, printed and published by William Stansby, contained nine plays, all previously published, plus two works of non-dramatic poetry, thirteen masques, and six "entertainments."

  • Poetry:
    • Epigrams
    • The Forest

The first five of the masques, from Blackness through Queens, had been printed previously, as had three of the entertainments, the Panegyre, and the Epigrams.


The abortive 1631 addition
In 1631 Jonson planned a second volume to be added to the 1616 folio, a collection of later-written works to be published by Robert Allot.[2] Jonson, however, became dissatisfied with the quality of the printing (by John Beale), and cancelled the project. Three plays were set into type for the projected collection, and printings of those typecasts were circulated—though whether they were sold commercially or distributed privately by Jonson is unclear. The three plays are:


The second folio, 1640-1
Two folio collections of Jonsonian works were issued in 1640. The first, printed by Richard Bishop for the bookseller Andrew Crooke,[3] was a reprint of the 1616 folio with corrections and emendations; it has sometimes been termed "the second edition of the first folio." The second volume, edited by Jonson's literary executor Sir Kenelm Digby and published by Richard Meighen,[4] contained later works, most of them unpublished or uncollected previously—six plays (including the three printed in 1631), two of them incomplete, and fifteen masques, plus miscellaneous pieces. In the Digby/Meighen volume, varying dates in some texts—1631, 1640, 1641—and what editor William Savage Johnson once called "irregularity in contents and arrangement in different copies" have caused significant confusion.

  • Miscellaneous:
    • Underwoods
    • Horace, His Art of Poetry
    • The English Grammar
    • Timber, or Discoveries


The third folio, 1692
The single-volume third folio, printed by Thomas Hodgkin and published by a syndicate of booksellers,[5] added two works to the previous total: the play The New Inn, and Leges Convivales.


Two other works by Jonson were left out of the 17th-century folios but added to later editions: the plays The Case is Altered and Eastward Ho (the latter written with Marston and George Chapman).


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Brady and Herendeen, pp. 11-22 and ff.
  2. ^ Allot was a member of the syndicate of booksellers who published the Shakespeare Second Folio in 1632.
  3. ^ Crooke published a number of plays in the Caroline era, notably works by James Shirley.
  4. ^ Meighen, like Allot, was a member of the Shakespeare Second Folio syndicate.
  5. ^ The title page lists H. Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R. Chiswell, M. Wotton, and G. Converse.

[edit] References

  • Brady, Jennifer, and W. H. Herendeen, eds. Ben Jonson's 1616 Folio. Newark, DE, University of Delaware Press, 1991.
  • Brock, Dewey Howard. A Ben Jonson Companion. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1983.
  • Harp, Richard, and Stanley Stewart, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Loxley, James. The Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson. London, Routledge, 2002.
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