This volume contains Thomas Middletons four greatest plays, "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside," "Women Beware Women," "The Changeling," and "A Game at Chess." "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" is the most
complex and effective of the city comedies. "Women Beware Women" and "The Changeling" (with William Rowley) are two of the most powerful Jacobean tragedies aside from Shakespeare, studies in
lust, power, violence, and self-delusive psychology. "A Game at Chess" was the single most popular play of the whole Shakespearean era, a satirical expose of Jesuit plotting and Anglo-Spanish
politics which played to packed houses at the Globe until King James and his ministers banned it. With the most up-to-date introduction available, this volume offers all the play texts newly
edited with richly informative annotation.
