Worke for Cutlers: A Merry Dialogue betweene Sword, Rapier and Dagger

This edition of Worke for Cutlers was edited by Albert Forbes Sieveking and published in 1904, shortly after it had been staged (probably for the first time in 300 years) at Trinity Hall. The play was originally published anonymously in 1615, and was then described as ‘Acted in a Shew in the famous Universitie of Cambridge’. Sieveking gives reasons to believe that Thomas Heywood, whose most famous work is A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603), had at least a part in its writing, and points out the topicality of ‘A Merry Dialogue betweene Sword, Rapier and Dagger’ at a time when James I was issuing edicts against duelling, which was punishable by heavy fines or even death. The short play is provided with a ‘glossarial epilogue’ containing explanatory notes.