Two Moral Interludes

This is an edition of two sixteenth-century interludes. The first, Wittyand Witless, which was written by John Heywood, survives in only one manuscript,in the British Library. The text, of around 800 lines, is not in Heywood'shand, but the scribe attributes the play to him at the end of the manuscript.Witty and Witless was intended for performance before Henry VIII, and perhapsdates from soon after 1525 when the King's new jester, Will Somer, arrived atcourt. It shows the influence of the humanists, especially More and Erasmus.The Malone edition is a typefacsimile, near-diplomatic text, with the customaryscholarly apparatus.The other interlude is Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like. This may have beenwritten shortly before it was published, in a quarto edition printed by JohnAllde in 1568. Two further quartos (one undated, the other 1587) were producedby Allde, but these appear to be reprints, with sophistications and errors whichderive from the printing house. The Malone Society edition is a full-sizephotofacsimile of the first quarto, prepared from photographs of the unique copyin the Bodleian Library. In the textual notes there is a record of significantvariations between the first quarto and the others, and a list of readings whichreconstruct parts of the text lost or damaged in the Bodleian copy.Each play is supplied with an introduction, in which there is a discussion ofthe text, and a brief outline of historical and literary issues.Happe, Peter is the author of 'Two Moral Interludes' with ISBN 9780197290293 and ISBN 0197290299.