The Oxford Marston and The Dutch Courtesan

This paper situates the play in the context of the ongoing Complete Works of John Marston, under preparation for Oxford University Press, the first such collected critical edition ever to have been created. It discusses the edition’s aims and working practices as well as the new picture of Marston we expect to emerge from it. Scholars now often encounter The Dutch Courtesan in isolation, as Marston’s single best-known and most-read play. This paper approaches the play in the context of Marston’s career and publication history as a whole, in addition to the textual and theatrical relationships which work on the edition is gradually coming to disclose.