The Plays and Poems of William Heminge

This is the first edition of the complete works of William Heminge (1602-c.1653), son of Shakespeare's colleague and first co-editor, John Heminge. It contains a biography, critical old-spelling texts of his two surviving plays, The Jewes Tragedy and The Fatal Contract, and the small group of poems assigned to him in contemporary manuscripts. Heminge's tragedies in particular reveal him to be an innovative writer deserving far greater critical attention than he has previously received. He is both the first dramatist in English to see the theatrical potential of Josephus's account of 'the Fall of the Temple', and the first to challenge the conventions of revenge drama by presenting a fully autonomous female avenger on the English stage.