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The Devil's Law-Case
New Mermaids are modernized and fully-annotated editions of classic English plays. Each volume
The playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibliographical and textual standards
Textual notes recording significant changes to the copytext and variant readings
Glossing notes explaining obscure words and word-play
Critical, contextual and staging notes
Photographs of productions where applicable
A full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discusses authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading.
Edited and updated by leading scholars and printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, New Mermaids offer invaluable guidance for actor, student, and theatre-goer alike.
The playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibliographical and textual standards
Textual notes recording significant changes to the copytext and variant readings
Glossing notes explaining obscure words and word-play
Critical, contextual and staging notes
Photographs of productions where applicable
A full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discusses authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading.
Edited and updated by leading scholars and printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, New Mermaids offer invaluable guidance for actor, student, and theatre-goer alike.
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1617
3 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
John Webster
123 books102 followersJohn Webster (c.1580 – c.1634) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613), which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 5, 2016
This play is the most delightfully ludicrous thing I've read in ages and I honestly don't understand why nobody ever talks about it. Early modern farce at its absolute finest.
July 22, 2020
To my surprise, my favourite of the three Websters in my edition; a totally ridiculous farce where nobody stays dead and where everyone is engaged in constant plotting and counterplotting against each other, switching sides and disguising themselves differently scene by scene. It calls it a tragicomedy but it's mostly just funny. I doubt anyone performs this anymore, but with some cuts and good direction it'd be a riotous good night out.
February 13, 2023
The Devil’s Law-Case is a departure from Webster’s more famous works in that it is a tragicomedy rather than a tragedy. As with Shakespeare’s tragicomedies, this is something of a misnomer. The story has serious elements, but nothing tragic. There is much humour, but the play is not exactly a comedy either.
Nonetheless it represents a restatement of typical Websterian ideas in a more light-hearted vein. There is a brother scheming against his sister’s marriage plans, an attempted murder, various people in disguise, illegitimacy and allusions to incest, but this time the elements do not turn into tragedy.
The plot is too convoluted to be worth fully summarising here. Suffice it to say, the main points are these. Romelio is a merchant whose business has started doing badly. His sister Jolenta is hoping to marry Contrarino, a nobleman, but Romelio wants her to marry Ercole, a Maltese knight.
Contrarino and Ercole are friends, but become divided over Jolenta. They fight a duel in which both are injured but not killed. As Contrarino lies close to death, Romelio hatches a scheme to murder the ailing man, but this leads to one of the story’s more bizarre plot twists.
When Romelio’s mother Leonora hears about his murder attempt, she begins to cast doubt on his legitimacy, leading to the law-case of the title. This is because Leonora was in love with Contrarino herself, and wishes to punish her son by claiming he was the result of an affair.
This is an interesting shift from Webster’s familiar style, and it is nice to see him making a more original play which does not borrow as heavily from Shakespeare in dialogue or plot twists. Nonetheless we can hardly say the story in The Devil’s Law-Case is very rigorous.
There are a few scenes where characters begin making jokes about cuckoldry or offering up misogynistic comments about women, even though there is no actual marital infidelity in the play, and none of the women are evil. Even the play’s devil, Leonora, is more flawed than wicked. The observations have some relevance to the main story, but are thrown in arbitrarily in a manner that does not relate to events in the scene.
We could say the same about the play’s numerous meditations on death, but these are beautiful passages, and so typically Websterian that they are welcome additions.
Webster also leans a little too heavily on people wearing disguises and not being recognised, and it strains credibility after a while, especially since the reasons are so spurious. Romelio disguises himself as a Jew in order to get close to Contrarino for his murder attempt, but since Jews were widely mistrusted in his day, this only increases the suspicion of the surgeons looking after the injured man.
During the law-case, three people present are wearing disguises. Is this really likely? Two of them reveal themselves, but the other does not, though there seems no reason to maintain the subterfuge any longer, and good reasons to remove his disguise. In the scene in which he is finally identified, three more characters have been found in disguise, one of them (a surgeon) for no reason whatsoever.
An additional complication lies in the attempt by Romelio to persuade his sister to claim that she is pregnant so that he can pass off his own illegitimate child as hers when she marries Ercole. Aside from the issue of whether Jolenta would even agree to his, other entirely unnecessary complications are added. Jolenta falsely tells her brother that she is pregnant with Contrarino’s baby, and another character mistakenly thinks that the baby is the incestuous child of Jolenta and Romelio. Neither of these ideas goes anywhere.
At the end of the play when matters are resolved, Webster fails to include any dialogue resolving the issue of whether Jolenta will marry Contrarino or Ercole. We can imagine what will happen, but given that this was a big enough issue to result in a duel in an earlier act, a little wrap-up dialogue would appear to be needed.
Nonetheless I shall give the play four stars. This is because the story, with all its flaws, is hugely enjoyable, and it is nice to see a seventeenth-century play that is not merely re-heated Shakespeare.
Nonetheless it represents a restatement of typical Websterian ideas in a more light-hearted vein. There is a brother scheming against his sister’s marriage plans, an attempted murder, various people in disguise, illegitimacy and allusions to incest, but this time the elements do not turn into tragedy.
The plot is too convoluted to be worth fully summarising here. Suffice it to say, the main points are these. Romelio is a merchant whose business has started doing badly. His sister Jolenta is hoping to marry Contrarino, a nobleman, but Romelio wants her to marry Ercole, a Maltese knight.
Contrarino and Ercole are friends, but become divided over Jolenta. They fight a duel in which both are injured but not killed. As Contrarino lies close to death, Romelio hatches a scheme to murder the ailing man, but this leads to one of the story’s more bizarre plot twists.
When Romelio’s mother Leonora hears about his murder attempt, she begins to cast doubt on his legitimacy, leading to the law-case of the title. This is because Leonora was in love with Contrarino herself, and wishes to punish her son by claiming he was the result of an affair.
This is an interesting shift from Webster’s familiar style, and it is nice to see him making a more original play which does not borrow as heavily from Shakespeare in dialogue or plot twists. Nonetheless we can hardly say the story in The Devil’s Law-Case is very rigorous.
There are a few scenes where characters begin making jokes about cuckoldry or offering up misogynistic comments about women, even though there is no actual marital infidelity in the play, and none of the women are evil. Even the play’s devil, Leonora, is more flawed than wicked. The observations have some relevance to the main story, but are thrown in arbitrarily in a manner that does not relate to events in the scene.
We could say the same about the play’s numerous meditations on death, but these are beautiful passages, and so typically Websterian that they are welcome additions.
Webster also leans a little too heavily on people wearing disguises and not being recognised, and it strains credibility after a while, especially since the reasons are so spurious. Romelio disguises himself as a Jew in order to get close to Contrarino for his murder attempt, but since Jews were widely mistrusted in his day, this only increases the suspicion of the surgeons looking after the injured man.
During the law-case, three people present are wearing disguises. Is this really likely? Two of them reveal themselves, but the other does not, though there seems no reason to maintain the subterfuge any longer, and good reasons to remove his disguise. In the scene in which he is finally identified, three more characters have been found in disguise, one of them (a surgeon) for no reason whatsoever.
An additional complication lies in the attempt by Romelio to persuade his sister to claim that she is pregnant so that he can pass off his own illegitimate child as hers when she marries Ercole. Aside from the issue of whether Jolenta would even agree to his, other entirely unnecessary complications are added. Jolenta falsely tells her brother that she is pregnant with Contrarino’s baby, and another character mistakenly thinks that the baby is the incestuous child of Jolenta and Romelio. Neither of these ideas goes anywhere.
At the end of the play when matters are resolved, Webster fails to include any dialogue resolving the issue of whether Jolenta will marry Contrarino or Ercole. We can imagine what will happen, but given that this was a big enough issue to result in a duel in an earlier act, a little wrap-up dialogue would appear to be needed.
Nonetheless I shall give the play four stars. This is because the story, with all its flaws, is hugely enjoyable, and it is nice to see a seventeenth-century play that is not merely re-heated Shakespeare.
February 3, 2019
I recognize that there's much to take from Webster's The Devil's Law Case particularly in terms of women's roles within a legal context in early modern England. We see how they were able to make space for strategy and manipulation amidst their very restrained role in law, a shrewdness necessary for women during a time where their acceptable mode of behavior was constantly restrained by a legal order imposed by men. Female prerogatives of 'secret knowledge' on pregnancy, fertility, paternity, and virginity - things men lacked understanding in - were therefore employed as the basis of these strategies, and this is something we see very well deployed in Jolenta's plot against Romelio.
However, in terms of the actual play, I found it to be overly complicated, improbable, and very messy, to be honest, especially in comparison with Webster's other notable works such as The Duchess of Malfi, which I much preferred to this one. This made for a difficult reading experience that definitely lacked both clarity and pleasure.
Perhaps seeing it performed would change my opinion, but for now, I was not much impressed with Webster in this work.
However, in terms of the actual play, I found it to be overly complicated, improbable, and very messy, to be honest, especially in comparison with Webster's other notable works such as The Duchess of Malfi, which I much preferred to this one. This made for a difficult reading experience that definitely lacked both clarity and pleasure.
Perhaps seeing it performed would change my opinion, but for now, I was not much impressed with Webster in this work.
June 15, 2019
As bonkers as most EM tragicomedy, but definitely worth the read. Not, sadly, in the same league as the two great tragedies.
Read as part of the 2019 Shakespeare Institute Readathon.
Read as part of the 2019 Shakespeare Institute Readathon.
Want to read
April 26, 2025Started once got to pg 37
January 17, 2016
He’s dead! And he’s dead. He’s alive! He’s dead! I’ll stab him to make sure! He’s dead! Wait, he’s alive! He’s alive, too!
This sums up the middle portion Webster’s The Devil’s Law-Case, a rather complicated, wildly improbable plot about inheritance, romance and the law. For those who enjoy Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, there is a reason this play is much less known and discussed. There are few, if any, likeable characters in the play and the humor is rather mean-spirited and somewhat misogynistic.
Be satisfied with Webster’s more famous tragedies. There’s not much here for modern readers to enjoy.
This sums up the middle portion Webster’s The Devil’s Law-Case, a rather complicated, wildly improbable plot about inheritance, romance and the law. For those who enjoy Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, there is a reason this play is much less known and discussed. There are few, if any, likeable characters in the play and the humor is rather mean-spirited and somewhat misogynistic.
Be satisfied with Webster’s more famous tragedies. There’s not much here for modern readers to enjoy.
May 27, 2024
This play is a sort of airless tragicomedy of revenge. I think the main problem is the "law-case" part of the whole thing, which comprises most of the fourth act. Webster himself seems to understand the dryness of the legal case, moving it aside for act five in favor of a much-more-interesting duel. Another of The Devil's Law-Case's problems is that there is absolutely no mystery to this play. Rather than surprising his audience with revelations, he shows us all of the revelations up front, spoiling all of the play's mysteries as soon as its villainous characters concoct them. It's a very odd dramaturgical move.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews