2024 Foxcroft Lecture: The Lost Plays of Shakespeare’s England

What if the world had never heard of William Shakespeare?

If it weren’t for the publication of The First Folio in 1623, many of Shakespeare’s plays likely would’ve been lost to the curse of time.

And while we’re lucky to have his bibliography to read, see and enjoy today, there are hundreds more plays from the period that haven’t survived. What could we be missing out on? How many counterparts to Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth have been lost?

In our 2024 Foxcroft Lecture, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at The University of Melbourne David McInnis will explore why so many early modern dramas have gone missing and what we can do to recover them.

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Auslan interpretation is available on request for this event up to two weeks prior to the event. Please indicate if you require an Auslan interpreter in the access question when booking your ticket.

About Professor David McInnis

David McInnis is Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at The University of Melbourne and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Royal Historical Society (UK). He is President of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA), Vice President of the Marlowe Society of America (MSA), and a member of the Board of Bell Shakespeare, Australia's national theatre company specialising in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

His major scholarly books include Shakespeare and Lost Plays (Cambridge UP, 2021), Mind-Travelling and Voyage Drama in Early Modern England (Palgrave, 2013), and the Revels Plays edition of Dekker’s Old Fortunatus (Manchester UP, 2020). He is currently editing Timon of Athens for the Arden Shakespeare 4th series; Abdelazer for the Cambridge Behn; and (with Claire Bourne) the Tamburlaine plays for the Oxford Marlowe.

About the Foxcroft Lecture

The annual Foxcroft Lecture honours the pioneering bibliographer Albert Broadbent Foxcroft, who began working at State Library Victoria in 1902 at the age of 17 until his untimely death in 1938. He left an enduring legacy of scholarship and was highly regarded and influential in developing the Library's rare books collection.

This lecture has been generously supported by Professor Wallace Kirsop and Joan Kirsop.

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