Volpone (Paperback - 2021)

Volpone (or The Fox) is a comedy in five acts, performed about 1605–1606 and published in 1607, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies. It is an innovative kind of high-energy, intensely theatrical comedy which sustained both high moral seriousness and exuberant hilarity. It sets out to make its audience think about the troublingly subversive but exhilarating power of money and what it does to those who are consumed by greed for it, but also to give them a very good time in the theatre. It combines its moral into a very funny, entertaining play. The action is fast-paced, non-stop and demands our attention, and Jonson boldly breaks rules and generic conventions along the way.

Ben Jonson (11 June 1572-6 August 1637) was an English playwright, poet, actor, and literary critic, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the region of James I. He popularized the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry.