Love in It’s Extasie: or, The Large Prerogative. A Kind of Royall Pastorall Written Long Since, by a Gentleman, Student at Æton and Now Published. With an Introduction by Robert Birley.
Ilkley: Printed for presentation to the members of the Roxburghe Club, 1981. Printed in an edition of 170 copies. A fine copy. Quarter black morocco over red paper boards, vellum corners, spine stamped in gilt, top edge gilt. Small octavo. [8], 56, [56, in facsimile] pp. With a list of subscribers. Item #11713
This play originally appeared in 1649, the year King Charles I was executed in Whitehall. The author was said to be a school boy of not yet seventeen years. The writer was probably William Peaps, a distant cousin of Samuel Pepys. The subject is several interwoven love stories, but the underlying theme is how one should react to tyranny—i.e., whether revolution is ever justified, and whether tyranny inevitably leads to more tyranny. At the end of the play the remorseless ruler of the kingdom admits that he has erred: “Too long I have practis’d Tyrany;/Mercy hereafter shall become my study.”.
Price: $200.00