Albion Knight
Historical Records
Stationers' Register
22 July 1565--22 July 1566 (S.R. I, 1.295)
colwell | Recevyd of Thomas Colwell for his lycence for prynting of a | |
play intituled a merye playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of | ||
ALBYON knyghte . . . . . . . . Iiijd |
Print fragment
A 6-leaf fragment comprising leaves B1, B4, and C1-4 survives at the Huntington Library:
Anon., [A mery playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of albyon knyghte], [London: Printed by Thomas Colwell, 1566], RB 60584.
(Reproduced by permission of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.)
sig. B1r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. B1v (Click here for transcription) |
sig. [B4]r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. [B4]v (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C1r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C1v (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C2r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C2v (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C3r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C3v (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C4r (Click here for transcription) |
sig. C4v (Click here for transcription) |
Theatrical Provenance
Unknown.
Probable Genre(s)
Moral Interlude (Harbage); Moral (Wiggins).
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
<Enter any information about possible or known sources. Summarise these sources where practical/possible, or provide an excerpt from another scholar's discussion of the subject if available.>
References to the Play
(Information welcome)
Critical Commentary
Wiggins (408) dates the play to 1565, the year he suggests it was printed (given the SR entry), but provides limits of 1537-8, 1559-65.
Harbage dates the play much earlier, to 1537, though provides generous limits of c.1537-1566.
Greg (229), in his MSC edition (1910), associated this play with the entries in Archer's List (see the specific page here) and Kirkman's list of publications (A true, perfect, and exact catalogue of all the comedies, tragedies, tragi-comedies, pastorals, masques and interludes, that were ever yet printed and published, till this present year 1661). He further reports that although Collier was the first to record the existence of this print fragment (reprinting it in 1840), his suggestion that it had been used as wastepaper in a binding was not certain: "This may be so, though the leaves bear no sign of having ever formed part of a binding" (228).
For What It's Worth
(Information welcome)
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 29 February 2016.