THE BUSINESS OF PLAYING. The Beginnings of the Adult Professional Theater in Elizabethan London.

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original light blue cloth with dark blue and gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. With eight black and white illustrations throughout. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt bright and fresh, with some bumping to the spine tips, and very light rubbing to the extremities. The contents are clean throughout, and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed dustwrapper, which has a short closed tear to the top edge of the rear panel, and some faint moisture marks to the underside, which are just discernible to the printed side.

'Ingram examines the wider context of the development of the business of playing during the Elizabethan period - a time of foreign wars and political intrigue, of spiraling inflation and civic unrest, of entrepreneurship and piety' (publisher's blurb).