The Spanish Tragedy

London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1970. Cloth. Very Good/Good. 8" by 5" . None. A first edition thus of this well-known Elizabethan play. Nice clean copy with black and pink design to dust jacket and copy of original title page. The Spanish Tragedie: or, Hieronimo is Mad Againe is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1587-1590 and first performed in London around 1590. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy was often referenced (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of The Spanish Tragedy, such as the play-within-a-play used to trap a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Thomas Kyd is frequently proposed as the author of the lost Ur-Hamlet play that was one of Shakespeare's primary sources for Hamlet.) In a cloth binding in the original dustwrapper. Externally very smart. The binding is tight and firm and both covers are firmly attached. There is very little wear to the extremities. The dust jacket is slightly worn with a couple of chips to the edge. Internally the book is clean and bright throughout with no apparent marks Very Good