Authorship and Appropriation : Writing for the Stage in England, 1660-1710

Authorship and Appropriation is the first full-length study of the cultural and economic status of playwriting in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It argues that the period was decisive in the transition from Renaissance conceptions of authorship towards modern ones. Paulina Kewes explores a series of developments in the theatrical marketplace which increased both the rewards and the prestige of the dramatist, and shows the Restoration period to have been one of serious and animated debate about the methods of playwriting.