Play about the Duke of Florence (BL Add MS 88878)

Anon. (Webster?) (1630s)

Historical Records

BL Add MS 88878 (images)

This manuscript play fragment exists only as a single sheet of paper (2 folios / 4 pages) in length. The first page features a number at the top (2) and begins part-way through a scene, implying that the surviving sheet was at least conceived of as part of a series, whether or not the play was continued. (BL Add MS 88878):

BL Add MS 88878, fol.1r.	BL Add MS 88878, fol.1v.

BL Add MS 88878, fol.2r.	BL Add MS 88878, fol.2v.

All images (c) British Library. Reproduced by permission.


NB. The above images have been cropped into pages to display the text in order. The following openings illustrate the sheet of paper itself:

BL Add MS 88878, fol.2v-1r.	BL Add MS 88878, fol.1v-2r.

Theatrical Provenance

There is no recorded evidence of a performance of a play corresponding to this fragment of text. Nevertheless, it bears similarities to Act 2, Scene 1 of James Shirley’s play The Traitor, which was written in 1630, licensed for performance on May 4, 1631, and probably first performed by Queen Henrietta Maria’s company before being taken over by Beeston’s Boys (Bentley 1:226). Since the language of the manuscript ties it quite definitively to 1630–35, the precise period when The Traitor was written, performed, and published (Smith 2017), we must assume that the texts were at least contemporary with one another if not more closely connected. It is possible, but by no means definite, that the Melbourne Manuscript is a foul-paper (draft) version of The Traitor 2.1. The fragment was read through aloud by attendees of the Early Modern Interdisciplinary Seminar held at Clare College, Cambridge in November 2015, in advance of a research paper on the manuscript.

Probable Genre(s)

Tragedy.

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

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References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

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For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

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