{"product_id":"2026100009153-secondhand-the-best-plays-of-the-old-dramatists-philip-massinger-thomas-otway-james-shirley","title":"The Best Plays Of The Old Dramatists: Philip Massinger, Thomas Otway \u0026 James Shirley","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Fair\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners\u003cbr\u003ePages: Yellowed\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: good\/fair for age. Worn and sunned boards. Some bumping on spines and corners. Hinges cracked; no loose pages. Thomas Otway - newspaper clipping on fep; last ad page and page 85. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree titans of the English stage — Philip Massinger, Thomas Otway, and James Shirley — are gathered in this magnificent trio of volumes from the celebrated Mermaid Series, The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists, each edited by a distinguished Victorian literary scholar. Massinger's commanding moral dramas, Otway's heartbreaking tragedies of passion and betrayal, and Shirley's elegant comedies of manners together paint a rich and turbulent portrait of England's golden age of theatre, spanning the Jacobean to the Caroline eras. Each unexpurgated edition presents the playwrights' works in their full, unaltered form — a bold editorial commitment that distinguished the Mermaid Series from its more squeamish contemporaries.\n\nEdited respectively by Arthur Symons, Roden Noel, and Edmund Gosse — three of the most formidable literary minds of the late nineteenth century — these volumes are both scholarly achievements and passionate acts of critical rescue, restoring neglected masterworks to their rightful place in the canon. The Mermaid Series as a whole stands as one of the great monuments of Victorian literary scholarship, championing the brilliance of pre-Restoration drama with infectious enthusiasm and rigorous erudition. Whether read as individual volumes or as a set, these books invite the reader to rediscover a world of theatrical genius that still crackles with wit, pathos, and raw human drama — a world that, once entered, is impossible to leave.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49269332607195,"sku":"2026100009153-SECONDHAND","price":50.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/0faa1ae6-f49f-4733-85da-2b2ca1e16acf.png?v=1788998216","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100009153-secondhand-the-best-plays-of-the-old-dramatists-philip-massinger-thomas-otway-james-shirley","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}