Richard Brome

<p>Richard Brome was the leading comic playwright of 1630s London. Starting his career as a manservant to Ben Jonson he wrote a string of highly successful comedies which were influential in British theatre long after Brome's own playwriting career was cut short by the closure of the theatres in 1642.<br>This book offers the first full-length chronological account of Brome's life and works drawing on a wide range of recently rediscovered manuscript sources. It traces the early hostility to Brome from those who wrote him off as a mere servant; his continuing struggles with plague closures contract disputes and theatrical takeover bids; and his literary relationships with Jonson Shakespeare and others. Each of the surviving plays is discussed in relation to its social and political context and its sense of place. A final chapter reviews Brome's enduring stageworthiness into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the most recent Brome revivals.</p>