THE COMPLETE WORKS OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. Volume III. Edward II.

First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Personal copy of the editor Dr Richard Rowland. Publisher's original navy cloth with gilt titles to the spine, and an insignia stamped in blind to the upper board. Retaining the original barcode label to the lower board. A near fine copy, the binding firm and slightly cocked, the cloth bright and fresh, with some rubbing to the spine tips and extremities. The contents, with a small pencilled marginalia by Dr Richard Rowland on page 3 and a small brown mark on page 21, are otherwise clean throughout, and without inscriptions or stamps.

From the library of (and with pencilled marginalia of) the editor Dr Richard Rowland, author on the Renaissance and classical mythology, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. The third volume in the Oxford English Texts 'Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe' series, summarised thus in a short synopsis preceding the text: 'Marlowe's highly controversial Edward II concerns the conflicting claims of love and politics, the urgency of homoerotic desire, and the cruelty with which unscriupulous authority can exert control. The boldness with which the work confronts these issues makes it unique in the period, yet this is the first critical edition of the play with full scholarly apparatus for twenty-five years. Richard Rowland's edition presents an old-spelling text which adheres more closely to the first quarto of 1594 than any edition hitherto. [...] A full commentary and introduction contextualize the play and give an entirely original account of the relationship between the play, Marlowe's own age, and events which immediately followed it'.