Mother Bombie - Couverture souple

First performed by Paul's Boys circa 1590, Mother Bombie is unique among Lyly's comedies in its urban setting and focus upon middle and lower class concerns. Structured upon a Roman New Comedy model, the play turns on the tissue of misconceptions surrounding the efforts of four fathers to secure socially advantageous marriages for their heirs, and the determination of their young servants to exploit their masters' misguided aspirations for their own advantage. At once an elaborate play on the term 'natural' and an 'anatomy of wit', the play has delighted some by its sheer inventiveness and frustrated others by the complexities of its plot, and critical opinion remains divided over almost every aspect of the work, including the function of the title-figure. A theatrical success in its own day, the play is of particular interest to twenty-first century criticism for its focus upon those situated on the margins of the social group, notably Mother Bombie herself, thought by some to be a witch, and the two simpletons whose marital prospects lie at the heart of the action. The play is newly re-edited from the earliest witnesses, the quartos of 1594 and 1598, and incorporates the songs first published by Blount in his collected edition of Lyly's works in 1632. The first fully annotated, modern-spelling edition of the play to have appeared for over thirty years, its publication brings to completion the project, initiated by George Hunter and David Bevington and continued by Leah Scragg, to publish Lyly's complete dramatic works in the Revels Plays series.

Leah Scragg is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester