This is the first Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen. Largely ignored for centuries because of doubts about its authorship and its subject matter, once considered distasteful, it is surprisingly relevant to many current interests. Lois Potter's valuable edition gives a full exposition of contemporary claims as to authorship and genre, discussing all the elements of collaborative writing & not only the two authors themselves but their historical, theatrical and literary contexts. She argues that, complex as the collaboration process was, the end product can be discussed as a coherent work because of and not despite the circumstances of its production. Potter supplies new information on sources and, drawing on her extensive experience as a theatre critic, discusses the play's afterlife and compares a number of recent stagings of the play. 'Potter's The Two Noble Kinsmen...shows how, even in the case of a play with a comparatively limited performance history, understanding of performance can inform every aspect of an edition...as usual with the Arden series, it is the amplitude and intelligence of the commentary that is so striking.' Peter Holland, Times Literary Supplement

This is the first Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen. Largely ignored for centuries because of doubts about its authorship and its subject matter, once considered distasteful, it is surprisingly relevant to many current interests. Lois Potter?s valuable edition gives a full exposition of contemporary claims as to authorship and genre, discussing all the elements of collaborative writing ? not only the two authors themselves but their historical, theatrical and literary contexts. She argues that, complex as the collaboration process was, the end product can be discussed as a coherent work because of and not despite the circumstances of its production. Potter supplies new information on sources and, drawing on her extensive experience as a theatre critic, discusses the play?s afterlife and compares a number of recent stagings of the play. 'Potter's The Two Noble Kinsmen...shows how, even in the case of a play with a comparatively limited performance history, understanding of performance can inform every aspect of an edition...as usual with the Arden series, it is the amplitude and intelligence of the commentary that is so striking.' Peter Holland, Times Literary Supplement

The Arden Shakespeare has long been acclaimed as the established scholarly edition of Shakespeare's work. Now being totally reedited for the third time, Arden editions offer the very best in contemporary scholarship. Each volume provides a clear and authoritative text, edited to the highest standards; detailed textual notes and commentary on the same page of the text; full contextual, illustrated introduction, including an in-depth survey of critical and performance approaches to the play; and selected bibliography.

List of illustrations General editors preface Preface INTRODUCTION The genre: tragicomedy The collaborators The authorship question Collaboration and censorship The date Contexts: public Contexts: literary Contexts: theatrical The play's afterlife Text THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN Appendices 1) John Fletcher, Upon An Honest Man's Fortune 2) The Portrait-Frontispiece of John Fletcher, 1647 3) Francis Beaumont, The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn 4) Beaumont's 1613 Masque and The Two Noble Kinsmen 5) The morris 6) The music Abbreviations and references Index