Book excerpt: The Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker was a versatile and prolific writer, whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many of the period's most famous dramatists. Of the surviving plays that are entirely Dekker’s work, the best-known are ‘The Shoemakers Holiday’ (1600) and ‘The Honest Whore, Part 2’ (1630), which are typical of his work in their use of the moralistic tone of traditional drama. His ear for colloquial speech served him well in his vibrant portrayals of daily life in London and his works are characterised for their boisterousness nature and an inimitable mixture of realistic detail and romanticised plot. Dekker was also a writer of pamphlets, celebrated for their lively depictions of London life, vividly charting the city’s traumatic times. For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Dekker’s complete dramatic works, with numerous illustrations, rare plays and masques, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Dekker’s life and works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * 27 plays, with individual contents tables * Features many rare dramas appearing for the first time in digital publishing * Images of how the plays were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Rare pamphlets available in no other collection * Special criticism section, with two essays evaluating Dekker’s contribution to history of the theatre * Features two bonus biographies – discover Dekker’s literary life * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Solo Plays The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599) Old Fortunatus (1600) Lust’s Dominion (c. 1600) The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600) The Noble Spanish Soldier (c. 1602) The Whore of Babylon (1607) If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil is in It (1611) Troja-Nova Triumphans (1612) The Welsh Ambassador (1623) London’s Tempe (1629) The Honest Whore, Part II (1630) Match Me in London (1631) The Wonder of a Kingdom (1634) The Collaborative Plays Satiro-Mastix (1601) Blurt, Master Constable (1602) Patient Grissil (1603) The Honest Whore, Part I (1604) The Magnificent Entertainment (1604) The Family of Love (c. 1607) Northward Ho (1607) Westward Ho (1607) The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1607) The Roaring Girl (1610) The Witch of Edmonton (1621) The Virgin-Martyr (1622) The Sun’s Darling (1624) The Bloody Banquet (1639) The Prose Selected Pamphlets The Criticism Thomas Dekker by Algernon Charles Swinburne Dekker by Andrew Lang The Biographies Thomas Dekker by Ernest Rhys Thomas Dekker by Arthur Henry Bullen ‎ Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks