Marriott's List (1653)

Background

In late 1653, the printer John Marriott entered twenty-one plays on the Stationers' Register. The entry is dated 29 November, although it appears between entries dated 22 and 30 December, so that it may well be misdated by a month. Of the twenty-one plays he registered that day, eighteen are lost.
The three extant plays are:

[Henry Glapthorne], Revenge for Honour, a tragedy printed by Richard Marriott in 1654. (Bentley, 4.489-93).
The Eunuch, which Bentley identifies with William Heminge's tragedy The Fatal Contract, printed by "J.M.", probably John Marriott, in 1653. This identification has been accepted by Carol A. Morley in her recent and definitive edition of Heminge (239-54). Interestingly, both this had the same dedicatee as did the printing of Revenge for Honour; James and Isabella, Earl and Countess of Northampton.
The pastoral tragicomedy The Thracian Wonder, printed in 1661 by Francis Kirkman with a (generally doubted) attribution to John Webster and William Rowley.

The other eighteen are lost, although at least five of the titles are also known from other references to those plays (The Proxy, A Fool and Her Maidenhead Soon Parted, The Younger Brother, The Noble Trial, and The Florentine Friend). "All in all, the list is an odd one which, taken as a whole, throws no light on any of the individual titles. One would like to guess that the list represents part of the repertory of some company, but the evidence is against it… In the absence of evidence one can only assume that Marriott had assembled a miscellaneous group of manuscripts which he intended to publish, but that he later abandoned nearly all of them" (Bentley, 5.1446).

Transcription

Cited from Bentley, 5.1445. Stationers' Register, 29 November 1653.

Rich: Marriott Entred for his copies the severall playes following (vizt)
The Paraside or Revenge for honor. by Henry Glapthorne.
The fflorentine friend
The Proxe or Loues after Game
The Eunuch a Tragedy
The Conceits
Salisbury Plaine a comedy.
The Womans Master Piece
Pitty the Maid
The Royall Choice by Sr Robt. Stapleton.
The Noble Rauishers
A Foole & her maiden head soone Parted
Supposed Inconstancy.
The Womans Law.
The Diuorse
The Bond Woman
Castara or Cruelty without hate
The Thracian Wonder
The Blacke Wedding.
The Law Case
The Younger Brother
The Noble Triall

For what it's worth

As Bentley said, this list is tantalizing.

At least five of the twenty-one plays seem to have an identifiably female eponymous character; at least five more seem to have an eponymous act of love, sex, or marriage. It's hard to translate these statistics into meaningful terms, but do they suggest a repertoire unusually interested in women?

For a list of those plays which already have entries in the Lost Plays database, click the entry for "Marriott's List" which appears in the Categories list below.

Works Cited

Heminge, William. The Plays and Poems of William Heminge, ed. Carol A. Morley. Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006.


Site created and maintained by Matthew Steggle: updated, 3 December 2009.