Printing History
The only part of the trilogy which was in print at an early date was 2 Return, called simply The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony (1606), two editions bearing the same date. This has been several times reprinted, the best separate edition being that of Professor Arber in the English Scholars' Library (1879). Manuscript copies of all three plays were found in the manuscript collection of Thomas Hearne preserved in the Bodleian Library by the Rev. Rev. William Macray, which he printed in 1868. (The text of 2 Return was based on one of the editions of 1606, collated with the manuscript.) A recent edition (as of 1911) in modern spelling by Mr O. Smeaton in the Temple Dramatists is of little value. All questions connected with the play have been elaborately discussed by Dr. W. Lühr in a dissertation entitled Die drei cambridger Spiele vom Parnass (Kiel, 1900). See also, Dr. Ward's English Dramatic Literature, ii. 633-642; F. G. Fleay's Biog. Chron. of the Eng. Drama, ii. 347-355.
The two earlier plays were not known until Rev. Macray discovered them in the Hearne manuscript collection. The manuscript for The Returne from Parnassus (II) (which titles the play The Progresse to Parnassus) is housed in the Folger Shakespeare Library. The most recent edition of the plays appeared in 1949, edited by the Oxford scholar J. B. Leishman. Currently, students at the College of William and Mary are editing the text in order to make it accessible for an undergraduate audience.
The only book-length treatment of the Parnassus plays is Paula Glatzer's The Complaint of the Poet: The Parnassus Plays published in 1977.
Read more about this topic: Parnassus Plays
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