23. The Famous | Tragedy | Of | The Rich Ievv | Of Malta. | As It Was Playd | Before The King And | Queene, In His Majesties | Theatre at White-Hall, by her Majeſties | Servants at the Cock-pit. | Written by Christopher Marlo. | [Printer's ornament] London; | Printed by I. B. for Nicholas Vavaſour, and are to be ſold | at his Shop in the Inner-Temple, neere the | Church. 1633.
Marlowe probably wrote the play not earlier than 1588, because the line in the opening speech of Machevill, "And now the Guize is dead," refers to the Duc de Guise, the organizer of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, who died in that year. The tragedy was acted many times before it was entered in the Stationers' Register by the two publishers, Nicholas Ling and Thomas Millington, in 1594; but for some reason it was not printed even then. When finally issued in the form shown here, it was under the editorship of Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, who explains his connection with the work in his dedication to Thomas Hammon:
"This Play, compoſed by ſo worthy an Authour as Mr. Marlo; and the part of the Jew preſented by ſo vnimitable an Actor as Mr. Allin, being in this later Age commended to the Stage: As I vſher'd it into the Court, and preſented it to the Cock-pit, with theſe Prologues and Epilogues here inſerted, ſo now being newly brought to the preſſe I was loth it ſhould be publiſhed without the ornament of an epistle...."
Quarto.
Collation: A-K2, in fours. Without pagination.