Skip to main content
University of California Press

About the Book

The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) is the first original play by a woman to be published in England, and its author is the first English woman writer to be memorialized in a biography, which is included with this edition of the play.

Mariam is a distinctive example of Renaissance drama that serves the desire of today's readers and scholars to know not merely how women were represented in the early modern period but also how they themselves perceived their own condition.

With this textually emended and fully annotated edition, the play will now be accessible to all readers. The accompanying biography of Cary further enriches our knowledge of both domestic and religious conflicts in the seventeenth century.

About the Author

Barry Weller is Professor of English at the University of Utah and editor of the dramas in The Complete Poetical Works of Byron. Margaret W. Ferguson is Professor of English at the University of Colorado and author of Trials of Desire: Renaissance Defenses of Poetry (1983).

Table of Contents

PREFACE I 
INTRODUCTION I 
ELIZABETH CARY's LIFE AND woRKs 
SUBTEXTS AND CONTENTS FOR MARIAM 
Josephus and Jewish Materials 
Biblical and Historical Herods 
Mystery Play Herods 
Continental and Classicizing Dramas about Herod and Mariam
English "Closet" Dramas 
The "Social Text" of Henry VIII's Divorce 
CARY's MARIAM 
The Chorus and Conventional Wisdom 
Structure and Characterization 
MARIAM AND SHAKESPEARE 
THE TEXTS OF MARIAM AND THE LIFE 
The r6q Quarto of Mariam
The Manuscript of The Lady if Falkland: Her Life 
EDITORIAL PROCEDURES 
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
THE TRAGEDY OF MARIAM
Historical Background to the Events in the Play 
The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, by Elizabeth Cary 
Notes to the Play 
PART TWO
THE LADY FALKLAND
Chronology of Elizabeth Cary's Life and Works 
The Lady Falkland: Her Life, by One of Her Daughters 
APPENDIX A
PASSAGES FROM LoDGE's TRANSLATION OF JosEPHUS (1602)
APPENDIX B
TEXTUAL COLLATION FOR MARIAM 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Reviews

"This landmark edition . . . will be invaluable to scholars, teachers, and students."—Carol Thomas Neely, author of Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays