Ben Jonson was the greatest of Shakespeare's contemporaries. His fame rests not only on the numerous plays he had written, but on his achievements over three decades as principal masque-writer to the early Stuart court, where he had worked in creative, if at times stormy, collaboration with Inigo Jones. One of the most accomplished poets of the age, he was--in fact if not in title--the first Poet Laureate in England.
Ian Donaldson's new biography draws on freshly discovered writings by and about Ben Jonson, and locates his work within the social and intellectual contexts of his time. Donaldson depicts a life full of drama. Jonson's early satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, landed him in prison, and brought all theatrical activity in London to a temporary--and very nearly permanent--standstill. He was "almost at the gallows" for killing a fellow actor after a quarrel, and converted to Catholicism while awaiting execution. He supped with the Gunpowder conspirators on the eve of their planned coup at Westminster. After satirizing the Scots in Eastward Ho! he was imprisoned again, and throughout his career was repeatedly interrogated about plays and poems thought to contain seditious or slanderous material. Throughout this lively biography, Donaldson provides the fullest picture available of Jonson's personal, political, spiritual, and intellectual interests, and he insightfully discusses all of Jonson's major poetry and drama, plus some newly discovered works.
Jonson emerges from this study as a more complex and volatile character than previously depicted, and as a writer whose work strikingly foresees the modern age.
Industry Reviews
`Donaldson proves singularly capable of describing how key relationships in Jonson's life altered his tonal and thematic development as a writer.'
Essays in Criticism
`the definitive life of Jonson, and one of the best literary biographies written in any era.'
R.S. White, Parergon
`Donaldson's masterly examination of Jonson's life and works ... an exemplary biography that is highly recommended reading.'
Geoff Hiller, Melbourne Club
`this is a major book to own and read and re-read to understand the lateral riches and remarkable variety of the greatest period of English drama.'
Professor Stephen Knight
`marvelous ... a towering achievement'
Kevin Hart, Los Angeles Review of Books
`a ground breaking piece of scholarship ... this study will be a wlcome addition to the book shelves of students throughout the English speaking world.'
Ian Lipke, Media-Culture Reviews
`[an] excellant new biography ... both scholarly and readable'
Lev Myshkin, The Global Dispatches
`This new study is essential for academic collections and for readers wishing to seriously extend beyond Shakespeare their knowledge of this literary era.'
T.L. Cooksey, Library Journal
`Donaldson's long-awaited biography will be an important resource for Jonson scholars'
Jennifer Brady, Renaissance Quarterly
`an indispensable account of Jonson's life and milieu.'
Paul Hammond, The Seventeenth Century
`[a] superb new biography ... rich and readable'
Neil Rhodes
`Donaldson's indefatigable attention to the social, political, and intellectual dimensions of Jonson's world has resulted in an extremely readable and carefully sifted account of his life and career that is unlikely to be surpassed.'
William E. Engel
`Review from previous edition At last we have a biography worthy of the richness and complexity of Jonson's life, with all its concealments and ambivalences. This book illuminates the man, the huge range of his writings, and the extraordinary events through which he lived and about which he provided such carefully coded commentaries.'
JOHN MORRILL FBA, Professor of British and Irish History, University of Cambridge
`A rare and valuable achievement. Elegant in style, flexible in approach, and characterised by a tone of intelligent curiosity, it is engaging as well as definitive.'
Lisa Gorton, Australian Book Review
`Deeply researched but happily readable.'
New York Review of Books
`absorbing biography'
New Statesman
`fascinating portrait...brilliant biography'
Daily Telegraph
`authoritative and lucid biography'
Sunday Telegraph
`definitive biography of this quarrelsome playwright.'
Sunday Times
`The biographical material on Jonson is extraordinarily rich...Donaldson's fine book is stocked with new material'
The Guardian
`exemplary new biography...rich in detail and insights'
The Guardian
`a work of clarity and lucidity, exact in its historical detail, full of new material and ingeniously suggestive in its conjecture and interpretation.'
Sam Leith, Spectator
`Donaldson is ideally placed to write the definitive life, and he has done so.'
John Carey, Sunday Times
`Ian Donaldson has written a splendid life of this extraordinary man, which all claimants to the "tribe of Ben" will savor and prize.'
The Weekly Standard
`A learned biography, it cuts a revealing section through the Jacobean Age.'
Michael Alexander, The Tablet
`His deep involvement with Jonson scholarship and criticism ... is apparent on every page of his authoritative, elegantly written, and illuminatingly illustrated biography.'
Stanley Wells, New York Review of Books
`...one of the best literary biographies written in any era.'
R.S White, Parergon.
