Barry B. Adams (Editor)
John Bale's King Johan.
San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1969. Editor-signed first edition . With introduction and notes by Barry Adams. ix/211 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.75" x 9.75", is bound in dark blue cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Book shows very light shelfwear. Binding is firm. Interior is clean and bright. Dust jacket, with price of $7.50 on front flap, displays loss at top of rear panel as well as sunning along edges of the same.
Editor's name is signed in pencil at top of front flyleaf and various documents made out to the author pertaining to the publication and sale of the book are laid in.
"Mr. Adams' edition of the historical morality "King Johan" includes critical old-spelling text based on firsthand examination of the unique manuscript in the Huntington Library. Previous editors have either relied on John Payne Collier's version, prepared in 1838 when the manuscript was less nearly complete than it is today, or have worked from a photographic facsimile published by W. Bang in 1909. Problems of text, date, and sources receive a thorough and scholarly treatment in the Introduction and Appendix.
In his discussion of the theatrical and literary characteristics of the play, the editor introduces a fresh assessment of Bale as a polemical dramatist. The early Tudor playwright found in King John's struggle with Pope Innocent III the material for a commentary on the political and religious issues of his own day. To give this commentary dramatic form. he has drawn heavily on the conventions and technique of the medieval morality play, modifying them freely to suit his own purpose, "King Johan" indeed, stands out as the earliest example in the English theater of the isolated hero whose nobility and virtue being about his downfall in a world essentially evil. At the same time, the work points ahead to the popular chronicle play of the Elizabethan stage."