{"product_id":"9780141392233-retail-the-duchess-of-malfi-the-white-devil-the-broken-heart-and-tis-pity-shes-a-whore","title":"The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, The Broken Heart and 'Tis Pity","description":"\u003cp\u003eA new volume of the greatest tragedies of the seventeenth-century stage\n\nThese four plays, written during the reigns of James I and Charles I, took revenge tragedy in dark and ambiguous new directions. In The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, John Webster explores power, sex and corruption in the Italian court, creating two unforgettable anti-heroines. In The Broken Heart, John Ford questions the value of emotional repression as his characters attempt to subdue their desires and hatreds in ancient Greece. Finally, Ford's masterpiece 'Tis Pity She's a Whore explores the taboo themes of incest and forbidden love in a daring reworking of Romeo and Juliet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Webster was born in about 1578 in London. He studied law at the Middle Temple before embarking on a career in the theatre, collaborating on many plays with contemporary dramatists. But it was his two solo-authored tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1614), which sealed his reputation. He died in the 1630s.\n\nJohn Ford was born in 1586 in Devon. His early career was wholly concerned with poetry and philosophical works, and it was not until the 1620s that he began writing stage plays, including The Broken Heart (1620) and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (c.1630). Nothing more is known of Ford after the performance of his last play in 1638. \n\nJane Kingsley-Smith is a Reader at Roehampton University, London and author of Shakespeare's Drama of Exile (2003) and Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture (2010).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Book Grocer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46658902589659,"sku":"9780141392233-RETAIL","price":32.29,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/775f362e54994ed197f562d94632cdbb.png?v=1743573960","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/9780141392233-retail-the-duchess-of-malfi-the-white-devil-the-broken-heart-and-tis-pity-shes-a-whore","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}