Published anonymously in 1823, "The Night Before Christmas" has traditionally been attributed to Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), who included it in his Poems (1844). But descendants of Henry Livingston (1748-1828) claim that he read it to his children as his own creation long before Moore is alleged to have composed it. This book evaluates the opposing arguments and for the first time uses the author-attribution techniques of modern computational stylistics to settle the long-standing dispute. Both writers left substantial bodies of verse, which have been computer analyzed for distinguishing characteristics. Employing a range of tests and introducing a new one--statistical analysis of phonemes--this study identifies the true author and makes a significant contribution to the growing field of attribution studies.

Editors of Shakespeare's Complete Works must decide what to include. Although not in the First Folio collection of 1623, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III have now entered the canon as plays co-authored by Shakespeare. Determining the Shakespeare Canon makes the case for lifting Arden of Faversham, first published in 1592, over the same threshold. A wealth of evidence indicates that Shakespeare was wholly or largely responsible for several of its central scenes (constituting Act III in editions divided into acts), and that the domestic tragedy can thus be added to the mounting list of his dramatic collaborations. Shakespeare's beginnings as a playwright are due for reconsideration. The second half of this volume provides solid grounds for accepting that publisher Thomas Thorpe's inclusion of A Lover's Complaint within the 1609 quarto of Shakespeare Sonnets was justified. While A Lover's Complaint has long been part of the Shakespeare canon, according to most editors, the poem's authenticity has been vigorously challenged in recent years. Its status is crucial to how critics assess the authority of the quarto's ordering of sonnets and interpret the structure of the sequence as a whole. These two problems of attribution are each addressed in five separate chapters that describe the converging results of different approaches and rebut counter-arguments. Stylometric techniques, using the resources of computers and electronic databases, are applied and the research methodologies of other scholars explained and evaluated. Quantitative tests are supplemented with traditional literary-critical analysis.

This book redirects attention to a truth largely ignored by recent criticism—that Shakespeare’s excellence as a playwright is inextricable from his excellence as a poet. It explores the diverse means by which Shakespeare’s poetry enriches his drama, illustrating how particular words in a particular order render his dialogue distinctive and create supreme literary and dramatic value. By examining many passages, long and short and from a variety of Shakespeare’s plays—comedies, histories, tragedies, later plays—the author aids understanding of the poetic effects that make Shakespeare preeminent. His analyses, alert to textual variants and cruxes, are illuminated by comparisons: Shakespeare’s early verse is compared with his later verse and samples of Shakespearean dialogue are compared with versions in later adaptations, in modernizations, and inferior quarto texts, as well as with contributions by his co-authors to collaborative plays. The contrasts throw into relief the surpassing vitality and expressiveness of Shakespeare’s own language. Since the rhythmic vitality of Shakespeare’s verse is essential to how and what it communicates, an appendix on the principles of iambic pentameter is included to support those aspects of the analyses that refer to acoustic subtleties.

This is the second volume in the Cambridge edition of the works of John Webster, containing The Devil's Law-Case, A Cure for a Cuckold, and Appius and Virginia. This critical edition preserves the original spelling; incorporates t he most recent editorial scholarship, including valuable information on Webster's share in the collaborative plays; and employs new critical methods and textual theory. In particular, the edition integrates theatrical aspects of the plays with their bibliographical and literary features in a way not previously attempted in a scholarly edition of a Jacobean dramatist.

Second volume of plays in this edition of the works of John Webster.

The second volume in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of John Webster contains The Devil's Law-Case, A Cure for a Cuckold, and Appius and Virginia. This critical edition preserves the original spelling and incorporates the most recent editorial scholarship, including valuable information on Webster's share in the collaborative plays. In particular, it integrates the plays' theatrical aspects with bibliographical and literary features.

This is the third and final volume of the Cambridge edition of the works of John Webster. It contains the final complete play in the edition, the City comedy Anything for a Quiet Life, as well as Webster's spectacular Lord Mayor's pageant Monuments of Honour and his Induction and additions to John Marston's The Malcontent. Webster's non-dramatic work is also included: the deeply felt verse elegy to Prince Henry entitled A Monumental Column, his various shorter poems, including verses for the engraving of The Progeny of ... Prince James, and the thirty-two New Characters added to the sixth edition of Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters. This Cambridge critical edition preserves the original spelling of all the plays, poetry and prose, and incorporates the most recent editorial scholarship, including valuable information on Webster's share in the collaborative plays, and new critical methods and textual theory.

This is the fourth and final volume of the Cambridge edition of the works of John Webster. It contains four plays Webster wrote in collaboration, one - Sir Thomas Wyatt, a historical tragedy based around Lady Jane Grey - as part of a team of five led by Thomas Dekker, two - Westward Ho and Northward Ho, city comedies that prompted Chapman, Jonson, and Marston's Eastward Ho - with Thomas Dekker alone, and one - The Fair Maid of the Inn, an Italianate tragicomedy of which Webster wrote the largest share - with John Fletcher, Philip Massinger and John Ford. With the inclusion of these four plays, this Cambridge edition becomes the first complete works of John Webster. The edition preserves the original spelling of the plays, poetry, and prose, and incorporates the most recent editorial scholarship, including information on Webster's share in the collaborative plays, and new critical methods, textual theory, and theatrical analysis.