John Cragge’s The Wits Interpreter

This bibliographical note demonstrates that The Wits Interpreter, The English Parnassus, one of the earliest English drolleries, was not compiled by John Cotgrave, the well-known compiler of The English Treasury of Wit and Language, but by John Cragge, a little-regarded clergyman, known primarily for a series of pre-Civil War pamphlets and post-Civil War non-conformist religious tracts. This note helps to recognize the diversity of persons with a vested interest in the preservation of drama during the long period of the 1642–1660 playhouse closures.