Wise Woman of Hoxton

Four more 'never-published-before' Globe Quartos, including a pre-Shakespearean Lear The Wise Woman of Hoxton (1605?) The 'Wise Woman', alternatively dismissed as a charlatan or cursed as a 'she-devil', outsmarts gullible citizens and rakish gentlemen alike as the action moves through the colourful 'variety and rarity' of Cheapside and the Exchange to its festive conclusion in Hoxton. The Witches of Lancashire (1634) The real-life 'witches' had not even come to trial before this sensational dramatisation was performed at the (original) Globe in 1634. Everything is going wrong at a wedding, and everyone believes that a local coven is to blame. The play mocks the naivete of those who cannot see what is under their noses, ie organised witchcraft and its double, Roman Catholicism A Shoemaker a Gentleman (1638) Combines mythical tales of the origin of St Alban's with folklore about the craft of shoe-making to produce a comic history which draws together the foundations of British nationhood, the establishment of the Church of England, and the beginnings of dynastic rule. King Leir (1605) Obviously a prime source for Shakespeare, who may have seen it performed in 1605, Leir tells the same story as Lear but has a happy ending with Cordella marrying the King of France, reconciling with her father and reclaiming the crown of England from Gonorill and Ragan.