Old Fortunatus - (Revels Plays) Annotated by David McInnis (Hardcover)

About the Book

Written in a period characterized by increased mobility and the development of proto-capitalism, Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus (1599) is a journeying play that offers joyous celebration of the pleasures of travel and a circumspect critique of spendthrift indulgence. This Revels Plays edition makes Dekker's neglected stage romance newly available.

Book Synopsis

With its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons, aided by a magical purse and wishing-hat, offers the period's most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold.

This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play's performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. It provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play.

From the Back Cover

With its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. Written in November 1599 and performed at Richmond Palace before Queen Elizabeth I that Christmas, Old Fortunatus contains some of Dekker's finest poetry, earning the praise of such luminaries as Charles Lamb, Felix Schelling, and Algernon Charles Swinburne, who professed that 'Shakespeare has nothing more exquisite in expression of passionate fancy, more earnest in emotion, more spontaneous in simplicity, more perfect in romantic inspiration' than Dekker's play.

Derived from German folklore, Old Fortunatus dramatises the story of an impoverished Cypriot whom Lady Fortune blesses with the gift of a magical purse and who subsequently steals a wishing-hat that enables instantaneous transportation around the world. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons offer the period's most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, who was imprisoned for debt in 1598 and again in 1599, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold.

This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play's performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. By making Old Fortunatus newly accessible with unrivalled scholarly apparatus, this edition provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play.

Review Quotes

'McInnis has produced an admirable, rigorous, and reliable scholarly edition. He has given criticism a chance to match this editorial achievement with insights of comparable height and nuance.'
Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

'This new edition of Old Fortunatus is a valuable intervention. It brings the play into focus for advanced teaching and research. It suggests some of the ways Dekker's dramaturgy embodies the possessive imagination that structures English travel writing and proto-colonial fantasy in the period.'
Early Theatre

About the Author

David McInnis is the Gerry Higgins Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia