This was the first edition of Dekker's plays to appear in print since the late nineteenth century. Thus, for many years prior, Dekker had been the least accessible of the prominent Elizabethan dramatists, with the result that his anthologized plays had received undue attention at the expense of other highly readable works of the second rank. Professor Fredson Bowers here presents a critical old-spelling text of the ordinarily accepted canon, together with a few works not collected previously but which seem to merit inclusion in an edition of Dekker's plays. The text of the complete plays is in four volumes and a complementary four-volume set contains detailed introductions and notes to all the plays. In a general textual introduction Professor Bowers sets forth a reasoned account of his editorial method and procedures for a critical edition according to bibliographical principles. Separate introductions provide textual analyses of the individual plays, including the circumstances of publication and of textual transmission. Apparatus for each play consists of textual notes, tables of press-variants derived from collation of a substantial number of copies of original editions, lists of editorial emendations to the copy-text, and historical collations of all early editions.
