In a theatre which self-consciously cultivated its audiences imagination, how and what did playgoers see on the stage? This book reconstructs one aspect of that imaginative process. It considers a range of printed and documentary evidence - the majority previously unpublished - for the way ordinary individuals thought about their houses and households. It then explores how writers of domestic tragedies engaged those attitudes to shape their representations of domesticity. It therefore offers a new method for understanding theatrical representations, based around a truly interdisciplinary study of the interaction between literary and historical methods. The plays she cites include Arden of Faversham, Two Lamentable Tragedies, A Woman Killed With Kindness, and A Yorkshire Tragedy.

Catherine Richardson is Lecturer in English and History and Fellow of The Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham

Introduction1. My narrow-prying neighbours blab: moral perceptions of the early modern household2. Choose thee a bed and hangings for a chamber; Take with thee everything that hath thy mark: objects and spaces in the Early Modern House3. Arden of Faversham4. Two Lamentable Tragedies5. A Woman Killed with Kindness6. A Yorkshire TragedyConclusionAppendix 1. Objects in all urban roomsAppendix 2. Objects in rooms in all Canterbury housesAppendix 3. Objects in Canterbury office-holders roomsAppendix 4. Percentage of items in each bracket of total inventoried wealthAppendix 5. Percentage of valued items in each bracket of inventoried wealth