Collected Works of Thomas Middleton

The Oxford Middleton, prepared by seventy-five scholars from a dozen countries, follows the precedent of The Oxford Shakespeare in being published in two volumes, an innovative but accessible Collected Works and a comprehensive scholarly Companion. Though closely connected, each volume can be used independently of the other.

The Collected Works brings together for the first time in a single volume all the works currently attributed to Middleton. The texts are printed in modern spelling and punctuation, with critical introductions and foot-of-the-page commentaries; they are arranged in chronological order, with a special section of Juvenilia. The volume is introduced by essays on Middleton's life and reputation, on early modern London, and on the varied theatres of the English Renaissance. Extensively illustrated, it incorporates much new information on Middleton's life, canon, texts, and contexts; twenty per cent of the works included have never before been annotated. A self-consciously "federal edition", The Collected Works applies contemporary theories about the nature of literature and the history of the book to editorial practice.

Because Middleton is more representative than any of his contemporaries of the full range of textual practices in early modern England, his works provide an ideal focus for understanding the history of the book, and its relation to the larger history of culture, in this pivotal period. The Companion begins, accordingly, with eleven original essays placing Middleton's career in the context of larger cultural patterns governing the creation, reproduction, regulation, circulation, and reception of texts. These essays are followed by a textual introduction and full editorial apparatus for each work, including an account of evidence for its authorship and date of composition. This combination of detail and context provides a foundation for future studies both of Middleton and of early modern culture.