The best, perhaps, has survived, but a great deal of Elizabethan drama has not. The number of titles mentioned in contemporary documents - the account books of the impresario Philip Henslowe, the registers of the Stationers' Company, and so on - far exceeds the number of plays now extant as texts. Many never made it into print. Some did and have since perished: booksellers sold their wares unbound, and plays were often considered too trashy and ephemeral to merit the cost of binding. Many must have ended up 'bequeathed to the privy' or 'stopping mustard pots' - the literary chat of the period is full of such references - and others would have gone up in the fires that commonly broke out in the crowded wood-built cities.

LRB 26 November 1987 | PDF Download