4 NOVEMBER 1955, Page 34

Miss BRADBROOK is an engaging writer who, without popularising, can

address a public much wider than that of the English Literature Schools. Her subject is fresh, for there has been a great deal of detailed research on the Elizabethan theatre since the last full-scale treatment of comedy. The argument of her book is firm, though the rapid alternation of popular and learned themes and treatments might make for confusion. At the same time, she does not oversimplify the tangled develop- ments of the sixty years that separate the popular drama of the Sixties from the over- ripe masques and romantic comedies of Jonson and Fletcher. Miss Bradbrook never forgets, either, that the plays she so ably analyses were designed for the stage and not fur the study.

J. M. COHEN