Books in the Broadview Anthology of British Literature Editions series

The Alchemist has long been admired as one of Ben Jonson's best dramas. This edition includes an introduction to the play, offering discussion of its performance history and background information on alchemy. Thorough annotations to the text are also provided, as are contextual materials.

All of Gwerful Mechain's known work is included here--as are several poems of uncertain authorship, and a selection of other works that help to fill in the historical and literary context. Each medieval Welsh poem is provided in the original language and in two different translations--a literal translation and a second, freer translation, with rhyme patterns approximating those of the original.

"Among all manual arts used in this land, none is more famous for desert, or more beneficial to the commonwealth, than is the most necessary art of clothing." So begins Thomas Deloney's extraordinary prose narrative. It is an amiable and remarkably entertaining work of fiction - and also one that connects powerfully with the real world of sixteenth-century England.