MASSINGER, PHILIP | A New Way to Pay Old Debts: A Comoedie as it hath beene often acted at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane, by the Queenes Maiesties servants. London: Printed by E. P[urslowe]. for Henry Seyle, 1633

Property from a Florida Collector

MASSINGER, PHILIP

A New Way to Pay Old Debts: A Comoedie as it hath beene often acted at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane, by the Queenes Maiesties servants. London: Printed by E. P[urslowe]. for Henry Seyle, 1633

4to (7 x 5⅛ in.; 181 x 129 mm). Woodcut vignette on title, woodcut and type-ornament headpieces, woodcut initials; lower fore-edge corner of G1 with natural paper flaw resulting in loss of several words, B1 extended, K3 with paper flaw at tope margin not affecting headline, M1 with short tear at lower margin, trimmed close, shaving a few signature marks and catchwords, lightly soiled. Nineteenth-century polished calf, earlier red edges; extremities worn.

First edition. Massinger's best-known comedy, A New Way to Pay Old Debts demonstrates the author's usual preoccupation with showing "Virtue triumphant and Vice beaten." Based on Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608), Old Debts far surpassed its model, especially in the character of the villainous Sir Giles Overreach.

REFERENCES:        

STC 17639; ESTC S112423; Greg 474; not in Pforzheimer

PROVENANCE:

William E. Stockhausen (Sotheby Parke Bernet, 20 November 1974, lot 330)