Dr Amy Lidster, Jesus College Lecturer in English Language and Literature, has published a new book that explores how, in the early modern period, publishers and stationers shaped the genre of the history play and, consequently, its public reception.

 

In Publishing the History Play in the Time of Shakespeare (Cambridge University Press, 2022) Amy combines the methodologies of genre criticism and book history to argue that stationers have – through acts of selection and presentation – constructed some remarkably influential expectations and ideas surrounding genre. She challenges the uncritical use of Shakespeare’s Folio, published in 1623, as a touchstone for the history play, exposing the harmful ways in which this has solidified its parameters as a genre exclusively interested in the lives of English kings. Reframing the Folio as a single example of participation in genre-making, her book illuminates the exciting and diverse range of historical pasts that were available to readers and audiences in the early modern period.

Amy says, “This is the first book-length study of history plays to examine the genre through the publication process, and proposes that publication agents have actively defined and constructed the printed history play through two interlinked agendas: strategies of selection whereby only certain history plays were selected for publication, and strategies of presentation, such as title pages, woodcut ornaments and addresses to the readers.

“The publication process shaped the presentation of plays as books, which both discloses and directs how history plays were used and categorized. In turn, these practices shed light on three kinds of readings: those of publication agents who oversaw the process; those of early modern readers who encountered history plays as books; and those of modern readers, who have been significantly influenced by some early uses (such as Shakespeare’s Folio), but not others.”

Publishing the History Play in the Time of Shakespeare encourages the reader to reappraise the connection between plays on stage and in print, and to reposition playbooks within the historical culture and geopolitics of the book trade.

In addition to her teaching, Amy is also co-editor of the forthcoming Shakespeare at War: A Material History (Cambridge University Press), and her work has appeared widely in books and journals, including Old St Paul’s and Culture (2021), Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Studies, and Renaissance Drama. She joined Jesus College in 2021 to cover the role of Paulina Kewes, Professor of English Literature and Helen Morag Fellow and Tutor, while she undertakes a three-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship.

Amy has been awarded fellowships from the Society for Renaissance Studies (as a 2018/19 Postdoctoral Fellow), the Huntington Library, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, and was selected as a Next Generation Plenary speaker at the Shakespeare Association of America in 2017. Amy has previously taught at Kings College London, Shakespeare’s Globe, the University of Roehampton, and Brunel University.

 

For more information on Publishing the History Play in the Time of Shakespeare click here and to read Amy’s College profile click here.