The Family of Love charts a successful love intrigue between the cash-strapped Gerardine, and Maria, the sequestered niece of the mercenary Doctor Glister. Their romance unfolds against the dissection of two citizen marriages, the Glisters' and the Purges'. Mistress Purge attends Familist meetings independently, arousing her husband's suspicions about her marital fidelity. Two libertines, Lipsalve and Gudgeon, go in search of sex and solubility (freedom from constipation), receiving more than they bargain for in respect of the latter.

This scholarly edition of Family of Love marks the first occasion on which the comedy is attributed to Lording Barry in print. It brings together literary and historical discussion with a thorough analysis of the play's disputed authorship. Tomlinson highlights Barry's rich vein of burlesque humour in a comedy that combines magic, a trunk, and a mock-court session with vigorous colloquial language.

Reviews

'It's an excellent edition. The introduction is splendid and the commentary gives readers all the help they could want. Barry could never have imagined that his play would receive such fine, meticulous scholarship four centuries after his death.'
Macdonald P. Jackson, Professor Emeritus, University of Auckland

'A superb contribution to the study of early modern drama'
David McInnis, Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Melbourne, in Parergon

'The text may pre-date electricity, but rather than something old, this is language in its infancy: elastic and aural and as naughty as a toddler.'
Benjamin Kilby-Henson, Theatre Director

'Tomlinson's new scholarly edition of The Family of Love, the first in over forty years, is a valuable contribution to the Revels Plays catalogue.'
Early Theatre

INTRODUCTION
The Text
Lording Barry: Playwright, Pirate, Gentleman
The 'Moment' of The Family of Love, 1605-1606
The Authorship Debate
Sources and Intertexts
Staging and Stagecraft
The Play
Genre
'I hope my body has no organs' (3.2.25): Language and Style
'Efficacy in carnal mixtures' (3.2.45): Marriage and Sexuality
The Death of Melancholy
THE FAMILY OF LOVE
APPENDICES
A Marginal Annotations in The Familie of Love
B ' "Marstonian? ' Features of The Family of Loveidentified by Charles Cathcart
C Representations of the Family of Love in King James I, Basilicon Doron (1603) and John Rogers, The Displaying of an Horrible Sect (1578).
INDEX