Ben Jonson Folios
The folio collections of Ben Jonson's works published in the seventeenth century were crucial developments in the publication of English literature and English Renaissance drama. The first folio collection, issued in 1616, treated stage plays as serious works of literature instead of popular ephemera—at the time, a controversial position. The 1616 folio stood as a precedent for other play collections that followed—most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623, but also the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, and other collections that were important in preserving the dramatic literature of the age for subsequent generations.
Read more about Ben Jonson Folios: The First Folio, 1616, The Abortive 1631 Addition, The Second Folio, 1640/1, The Third Folio, 1692
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Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses bring ‘em, or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands, and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum or pear.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
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Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
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Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
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Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
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—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men:
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune gives the grace,
Or the feature, or the youth;
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With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)