An Edition of Jonson’s Entertainment at Britain’s Burse and a New Letter by Collier on Massinger in the Athenaeum (1857)

Abstract

This article identifies two previously uncatalogued items that were published in the Athenaeum in November 1857, each of which is connected to the then-recent acquisition of the Conway Papers by the Public Record Office (now the National Archives). These include a printing of Jonson’s Entertainment at Britain’s Burse and a letter from John Payne Collier that seems to refer to Massinger’s lost play Philenzo and Hippolyto. The former nuances the publication history of a work whose historical and dramatic importance recent scholarship demonstrates, while the latter offers evidence regarding Collier’s claim that a manuscript of Massinger’s play once lay among the Conway Papers.