Kynge Johan. A play in two parts. By John Bale. Edited by J. Payne Collier, Esq. F.S.A. From the MS. of the author in the library of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire

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4to. pp. xiv, 110. There are three copies in this collection, all in original cloth. The present has a bookmark of St. Mary’s Clapham Library and an inscription by I.W. Darby. Contains title vignette. A highly successful edition of a bitterly political two-part verse-play of about 1539 by the Protestant firebrand John Bale, often described as the earlies surviving specimen of the genre of the English history play. It was printed as Camden Society Publications, no. 2, originally for 500 copies, and as subscriptions quickly surpassed expectations, the edition size was doubled. With the result that more than half of the text had to be reset, which gave Collier the opportunity to make a number of corrections in these reprinted sheets. See A. & J. Freeman, John Payne Collier. Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 2004, I, pp. 220-224, 327; II, A29. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.