The Duchess of Malfi - hotsell A Miniature Book

The Duchess of Malfi
by John Webster
188 pages
2 3/4" x 2 1/8"

"Whether we fall by hotsell ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust."
- John Webster

In 1602, after the death of Queen Elizabeth 1, it didn't take long for the English playwrights to trim their sails to follow the tastes of James IV of Scotland, who became James 1. The new king's reign was sterner, more superstitious, and less tolerant than the more enlightened Elizabethans, and English drama became bloodier, influenced more by Seneca than by Plautus. The Duchess of Malfi, based on the story of Giovanni d'Aragona (1554), as told by Matteo Bandello's Novelle (1554), is the finest and darkest flower of Jacobean drama.

The Duchess, a young widow, yearns to marry her steward Antonio against the wishes of her powerful brothers. She marries him secretly and bears him three children before they are found out. Her brother the Cardinal wants her inheritance, but her brother the Duke wants a crueler and more pitiless revenge.

The play is bound in a black and gold diagonally patterned with a wide band of black snakeskin on the front and back. There are paper titles on the front and spine.
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Pat Sweet and the Bo Press make miniature illustrated books, maps, portfolios, journals, miniature library furniture, globes, and other small curiosities. Subjects range from fans to werewolves to mathematics, but have common themes of curiosity, wonder, mystery, and delight. Member of the Miniature Book Society.