Thomas Dekker, Westward Ho

Tamsin Theresa Badcoe (University of Bristol)

Ed. by William M. Hamlin, Washington State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1604

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

The Jacobean play Westward Ho is credited with initiating the fashion for “directional” city comedy on the London stage. Collaboratively authored by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, it inspired George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston to write the controversial Eastward Ho (1605), and was the forerunner to Dekker and Webster’s own subsequent work, Northward Ho (1607). It was written to be performed by the Children of St Paul’s, and on the dissolution of the Children’s Company in 1607 it appeared in print for the first time. It is likely that Westward Ho was composed in 1604, well in advance of the publication of Eastward Ho in 1605, and the title page of the first edition attests …

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1599 words

Citation: Badcoe, Tamsin Theresa. "Westward Ho". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 September 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8724, accessed 16 May 2024.]

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