HISTORY

The Malone Society is named after Edmond Malone, the editor of the first variorum edition of Shakespeare.  Since its foundation in 1906, its purpose has been to make more accessible the materials essential for the study of English Renaissance drama.  Its publications are renowned for their meticulous scholarship and high standard of accuracy, and are indispensable to students of early drama, and to university libraries providing resources in the fields of English Renaissance literature and theatre history.

The Society, which is a registered charity, publishes editions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plays from manuscript, photographic facsimile editions of printed plays of the period, and editions of original documents relating to Renaissance theatre and drama.  Recent volumes include: newly discovered plays (The Wisest have Their Fools about Them); Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles (Titus Andronicus' ); works by canonical authors (Gallathea and Sapho and Phao by John Lyly and Thomas Middleton's Hengist, King of Kent, or the Mayor or Queenborough ); rare or otherwise inaccessible texts (The Country Captain by William Cavendish); drama of the earlier sixteenth century (Common Conditions); and various collections of documents relating to the drama of the period. Volumes for 2006 are Guy of Warwick and Famous Victories. Please visit the publications pages for more information or to order volumes from the back catalogue. The featured volume for this month is John John the Husband, Tyb his Wife and Sir John the Priest.

Members of the Society pay an annual subscription (£25, or £10 for the student membership rate, in the United Kingdom) and in return receive the annual volume.  Publications of the Society currently in print are available to members at prices substantially below those at which they are offered to the general public.

To join the Malone Society, please contact your Local Representative.

NEWS

Praise for Malone Society Volumes

The 27th January 2012 edition (no 5678) of TLS features a review by  William Baker (Northern Illinois University) of recent Malone volumes as 'Noteworthy for their detailed scholarly introductions...pleasantly bound, typeset and printed...Malone Society volumes...are a pleasure to handle.  Long may they prosper in a post-print age.' On The Trial of Treasure is an 'excellent descriptive bibliographical analysis'.

2011 --- A BUMPER YEAR!

Following the publication of two volumes in 2010, the Society is pleased to announce that several more volumes are imminent.

Grace Ioppolo has edited a collaborative play by Fletcher, Field and Massinger, The Honest Man's Fortune, which was written for the Lady Elizabeth's Men in 1613 and revived for the King's Men in 1625. The manuscript, in the hand of the King's Men's book-keeper Edward Knight, offers a unique opportunity to study the entire process of transmission from authors to censor to book-keeper to actors to playhouse. This is our volume for 2009.

Two editions will be published as our volumes for 2011. The Humorous Magistrate, a 17th-century play satirising aspects of the personal rule of Charles I, exists in two distinct manuscripts, one of which (Arbury) was bound up with the manuscript of The Emperor's Favourite, which the Society published in 2010; this is an early working draft. The other manuscript (Osborne) represents a performance-oriented revision. Like The Emperor's Favourite, the play has been attributed to John Newdigate III (1600---1642).
The Arbury MS is edited by M. J. Kidnie, the Osborne MS by Mary Polito and Jackie Jenkins.

The long-awaited sixteenth volume in our Collections series should also appear this year.

John Edward Kerry Prize:
The Malone Society has organized a competition for graduate students to celebrate the life work of one of our members, the late John Edward Kerry (1924 – 2008). [More information and 2010 winner announced....]

Call for Proposals:
The Society is inviting proposals from scholars wishing to edit specific plays or collections of documents and expressions of interest from scholars willing to edit plays or collections of documents as recommended by the Editorial Board. Candidates should have carried out doctoral or postdoctoral work in an area or topic of relevant research interest. Previous experience in editing is desirable but not essential. Proposals and CVs should be sent to Dr Paul Dean (Pauldean505@btinternet.com) and should not exceed 2,000 words in length.

Praise for The Woman's Prize
The Society's latest volume, a full-colour photofacsimile, reproduced in actual size, of John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, is one of several commemorating the centenary of our foundation in 1907.  It was prepared by Meg Powers Livingston and was recently enthusiastically reviewed in the TLS by Laurie Maguire, who noted that 'The reader can enjoy flicking back and forth from Powers's descriptions and analysis to the high-quality pictorial evidence' and predicted that the continuing adaptability of the Society in the digital age 'points towards several more Society centenaries'. William Proctor Williams has also praised this volume (‘a magnificent facsimile') and the work of the Society: ‘So where does the Malone Society stand in the age of the pixel? … I submit that no matter how good the resolution is on your computer screen, … the Malone Society Reprint is a superior and more scholarly useful item than the digital form. … I trust that some reviewer a hundred years from now will get the same pleasure from reviewing the Society's bicentennial volume as I had reviewing The Woman's Prize ' ( Notes and Queries , 57 (2010), 136-8.

Featured Volume
The Society's featured volume for 2010...