Marlowe's Edward II. Edited by William Dinsmore Briggs. (David Nutt.
12s. 6d. net.)-This edition of Marlowe's famous play is characteristic of the best American scholarship. Dr. Briggs-who is now Assistant Professor of English Literature at Leland Stanford Junior University- took up this play for his Ph.D. thesis at Harvard. His intro- duction traces the development of the "chronicle history" as a dramatic form, and shows how it passed into the historical drama when the dramatic emphasis was shifted from acci- dental to organic relations. Thus the "chronicle history" was a natural successor of the mystery play, the main difference being that its subject was taken from the English chronicles instead of the Bible or the legends of the saints. Professor Gregory Smith has gone so far as to ask whether there really is any such genre as the" chronicle history " : artistically the term is no doubt without justification, but historically it plays a large part in the Elizabethan drama, and we welcome Dr. Briggs's learned analysis of it.
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