The Alchemist
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
First performed in 1610, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist stands as one of the most brilliantly constructed comedies in the English dramatic canon, a razor-sharp satire set in a plague-ridden London where three audacious con artists — Subtle, Face, and Dol Common — transform a borrowed house into a factory of fraud, fleecing a parade of gloriously gullible victims with promises of alchemical gold, supernatural power, and secret knowledge. The trio's elaborate schemes escalate with breathtaking comic momentum, as each new dupe — the greedy, the lustful, the fanatical — arrives convinced that the universe has conspired to grant them their deepest desire, only to find themselves outwitted at every turn. Jonson's genius lies in his ferocious command of language, character, and classical dramatic structure, wielding the unities of time, place, and action with the precision of a master craftsman to create a single, unrelenting day of escalating chaos. This New Mermaids edition, edited by Douglas Brown, presents the play with scholarly apparatus that illuminates Jonson's dense alchemical and contemporary references, making it accessible without diminishing its intellectual bite. Rooted in the Jonsonian tradition of comical satire, the play argues that human greed is not merely a vice but the engine of civilization itself — a provocation as unsettling and darkly funny today as it was four centuries ago.
Author: Ben Jonson
Format: Paperback
Genre: Plays
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
First performed in 1610, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist stands as one of the most brilliantly constructed comedies in the English dramatic canon, a razor-sharp satire set in a plague-ridden London where three audacious con artists — Subtle, Face, and Dol Common — transform a borrowed house into a factory of fraud, fleecing a parade of gloriously gullible victims with promises of alchemical gold, supernatural power, and secret knowledge. The trio's elaborate schemes escalate with breathtaking comic momentum, as each new dupe — the greedy, the lustful, the fanatical — arrives convinced that the universe has conspired to grant them their deepest desire, only to find themselves outwitted at every turn. Jonson's genius lies in his ferocious command of language, character, and classical dramatic structure, wielding the unities of time, place, and action with the precision of a master craftsman to create a single, unrelenting day of escalating chaos. This New Mermaids edition, edited by Douglas Brown, presents the play with scholarly apparatus that illuminates Jonson's dense alchemical and contemporary references, making it accessible without diminishing its intellectual bite. Rooted in the Jonsonian tradition of comical satire, the play argues that human greed is not merely a vice but the engine of civilization itself — a provocation as unsettling and darkly funny today as it was four centuries ago.