Lovesick Courtier
Historical Records
The Burn transcript of Herbert's Office-Book
Herbert's Office-book is lost, and survives only in various partial transcripts. In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from a hitherto overlooked transcript, made by the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn, of some of the material in it. These records include:
- Broome, Florentine Frend, allowed 1638 Queen's Company.
- Love Sick Courtier, alld for Salisbury Court, 1638
(Cited from Bawcutt, Control and Censorship, 202)
Theatrical Provenance
Queen Henrietta's Men at Salisbury Court
Probable Genre(s)
Unknown (if not the same as The Love-Sick Court)
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
None known (if not the same as The Love-Sick Court)
References to the Play
None known
Critical Commentary
Bawcutt, publishing this record for the first time, suggested that this title was an error for The Love-Sick Court, a satirical tragicomedy whose exact date and provenance were hitherto unknown. This suggestion has been accepted by Brome scholars including Matthew Steggle (122), and Eleanor Lowe in her 2010 edition of The Love-Sick Court. As far as I know, no-one has yet made in detail the counter-argument that this is indeed a record of a hitherto unknown lost play.
For What It's Worth
The Florentine Friend is discussed here.
Works Cited
Brome, Richard. The Love-Sick Court, ed. Eleanor Lowe. In Richard A. Cave, gen. ed., Richard Brome Online,http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome/
Steggle, Matthew. Richard Brome: Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004.
Site created and maintained by Matthew Steggle, Sheffield Hallam University; updated 11 May 2010.