Roaring Boys: The Life and Times of Elizabethan Playwrights [Hardcover]

Judith Cook (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0750933682 | ISBN-13: 978-0750933681 | Publication Date: January 25, 2005

In the late 1580s a new kind of entertainment flowered in London: professional theatre, with its custom built playhouses, professional companies, incredible staging and, last but not least, the new writers, poets, playwrights - the roaring boys. To ambitious young writers, London was a magnet offering the possibility of fame, excitement, wealth and opportunity beyond their wildest dreams. Arriving in London from quite ordinary backgrounds - Marlowe was the son of a shoemaker, Shakespeare's family were leather workers, Jonson's stepfather a bricklayer - they suddenly found themselves feted, offered large sums of money, the darlings of audiences - and they created drama off stage as well as on. Like footballer and media celebrities of today, they behaved like the stars they thought themselves to be - drinking with wild abandon, partying, courting publicity - their reputations growing in the telling. Some set out to shock; some drank too much, some, like Christopher Marlowe, became involved in fights, fatally; a few ran headlong into political danger. This lively and engaging book, packed with anecdote, recreates the lives and times of these playwrights and actors, and the world in which they lived from 1578 when Burbage built the first purpose built theatre to 1620 when the great age came to its end.

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About the Author

Judith Cook is a journalist, playwright and writer of non-fiction. Her books on the theatre include 'Director's Theatre', 'Women in Shakespeare', 'Shakespeare's Players' and 'Backstage'. She is a part-time lecturer at Exeter University in the Department of Elizabethan/Jacobean Theatre, and she lives in Newlyn, Cornwall.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: The History Press (January 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750933682
• ISBN-13: 978-0750933681
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,793,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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