 |
|
 |
-
-
1603Sir Walter Raleigh's notes
-
1604First English dictionary
-
1605Letter about Guy Fawkes
-
1605The Gunpowder Plot
-
1605The head of Guy Fawkes
-
1608Shakespeare's King Lear
-
1611King James Bible
-
1616The Globe Theatre
-
1617Surgeons' tools
-
1623Chinese globe
-
1623Shakespeare's First Folio
-
1636Lotus Sutra
-
1643English Civil War scenes
-
1647Witch hunting
-
1649Execution of Charles I
-
1649Agreement of the People
-
1649Charles I's executioner
-
1650Early A - Z of London
-
1650Advert for a quack doctor
-
1660Oliver Cromwell as the Devil
-
1665A cure for the Plague
-
1665Robert Hooke, Micrographia
-
1666Great Fire of London map
-
1666Great Fire of London
-
1666Wren's plans after the fire
-
1669Theatrical figures
-
1674Dictionary of criminal slang
-
1674Games and pastimes
-
1679Habeas Corpus Act
-
1679Map of the moon
-
1684A London Rhinoceros
-
1685Henry Purcell
-
1690Locke's Two Treatises
-
1693East India Company
-
1693Account of a shipwreck
-
1698Map of South America
-
-
Intro
During the Puritan period, play houses were closed down - the Puritans believed theatre to be sinful. So actors developed other, shorter means of entertainment such as dances or comedies which were performed, sometimes illegally, on improvised stages. A droll was a short theatrical scene, usually comic, taken and adapted from existing popular plays. Francis Kirkman’s collection of drolls, shown here, includes aspects of some of the most popular pieces of 17th century contemporary theatre, written by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. This is an illustration of a droll from Francis Kirkman’s collection entitled The Wits, or Sport upon Sport (first published in 1662), which included 26 such pieces including the grave-diggers’ scene from Hamlet.
Shelfmark: C.71.h.23
Prev
