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1882
Volume 22, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1378-2274
  • E-ISSN: 2031-0064

Abstract

Abstract

This essay analyses four of John Bale’s interludes (, , and ) as early examples of printed plays in England. It shows Bale’s direct involvement in the printing of the plays and his close co-operation with the printer van der Straten. The prints followed two objectives: polemical concerns to create books in favour of the Reformation, and a desire to reflect an interest in performance. These motives affected layout and decoration of the books, which set standards for the print of early Protestant drama in England.

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2018-01-01
2025-12-10

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References

  1. Manuscripts
    Bale, John, Anglorum Heliades, BL London, Harley MS3838, fols 3r–117r
  2. ——, Cronica seu fasciculus temporum ordinis Carmelitarum ex varijs, Bodleyan, Oxford, MS Selden Supra 41, fols 107r–95v
  3. ——, King Johan, Huntington Library San Marino Ca, MS HM3
  4. Early Prints
    Bale, John, A brefe Comedy or enterlude concernynge the temptacyon of our lorde (Wesel: Derick van der Straten, [c. 1547]) (STC 1279)
  5. ——, A comedy concernynge thre lawes (Wesel: Derick van der Straten, [c. 1547]) (STC 1287)
  6. ——, God’s Promises (Wesel: Derick van der Straten, [c. 1547]) (STC 1305)
  7. ——, Illustrium maioris Britanniae scriptorium […] Summarium (Wesel: Derick van der Straten, 1548)
  8. ——, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae […] catalogus, 2 vols (Basel: Oporinus, 1557–1559)
  9. ——, A Tragedye or enterlude manyfestyng the chefe promyses of God vnto man […] (Wesel: Derick van der Straten, [c. 1547]) (STC 1305)
  10. ——, A Tragedie or Enterlude manifesting the chiefe promises of God unto man […] (London: John Charlewood for Stephen Peele, 1577) (STC 1306)
  11. The byble (Antwerp: Matthew Crom for Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, 1537) (STC 2066)
  12. The Harleian Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, As well in Manuscript as in Print, Found in the late Earl of Oxford’s Library. Interspersed With Historical, Political, and Critical Notes, ed. by William Oldys et al., 8 vols (London: Printed for T. Osborne, 1744)
  13. Edited Source Texts
    Bale, John, The Complete Plays of John Bale, ed. by Peter Happé, 2 vols (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985–1986)
  14. ——, Catalogue of Tudor authors: an annotated translation of records from the Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae … catalogus (1557–1559), trans. and ed. by J. Christopher Warner (Tempe: Arizona CMRS, 2010)
  15. ——, King Johan, ed. by John Henry Pyle Pafford, Malone Society Reprints (Oxford: OUP, 1931)
  16. Secondary Material
    Atkin, Tamara, ‘Playing with Books in John Bale’s Three Laws’, The Yearbook of English Studies, 43 (2013), 24361
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Blouw, P. Valkema et al., Typographia Batava, 1541–1600. Repertorium van boeken gedrukt in Nederland tussen 1541 en 1600 (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1998)
  18. Boheemen, Petra van et al., Het boek in Nederland in de 16de eeuw (’s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij, 1986)
  19. Greg, Walter Wilson, A Bibliography to the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, 4 vols, (London: Biographical Society, 1939–1959, repr. 1970)
  20. ——, ‘Notes on Some Early Plays’, The Library, 4th series, 11 (1930), 44–60
  21. Happé, Peter, ‘A Catalogue of Illustrations in the Books of John Bale’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 32 (2001), 81–118
  22. ——, ‘Deceptions: The Vice of the Interludes and Iago’, Theta, 8 (2009), 10524
    [Google Scholar]
  23. ——, ‘Devils, Sinnekins and the Vice’, Cahiers Elisabéthains, 53 (1998), 112
    [Google Scholar]
  24. ——, ‘John Bale’s Lost Mystery Cycle’, Cahiers Elisabéthains, 60 (2001), 114
    [Google Scholar]
  25. King, John N, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 2006)
  26. McCusker, Honor C., ‘Some Ornamental Initials Used by Plateanus of Wesel’, The Library, 4th series, 16 (1935/36), 452–54
  27. Miller, Edwin S., ‘The Antiphons in Bale’s Cycle of Christ’, Studies in Philology, 48 (1951), 62938
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Shrank, Cathy, ‘Mise-en-page, “the Authors Genius”, “the capacity of the Reader”, and the ambition of “a Good Compositer”’, in Religion and the Book Trade, ed. by Caroline Archer et al. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 66–82
  29. Spivack, Bernard, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (New York: CUP, 1958)
  30. Steele, Robert, ‘Notes on English books printed abroad, 1525–48’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 11 (1912), 189236
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Updike, Daniel Berkeley, Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use: A Study in Survivals (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1922), 4th edition (London: British Library, 2001)
  32. Vervliet, H. D. L., Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Countries (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1968)
  33. Wiggins, Martin et al., British Drama 1533–1642. A Catalogue, vol. i (Oxford: OUP, 2012)
  34. Internet Resources
    Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700: http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/authors/balejohn.html
/content/journals/10.1484/J.EMD.5.119442
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