Download or read book Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642 written by E. A. J. Honigmann and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of over one hundred wills left by those who participated in the life of the theatre - from actors and dramatists to carpenters and costumiers. The wills not only offer vital historical evidence but are also important human documents, testaments to the social, financial, religious and sentimental lives of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Of the wills reprinted here, one third were newly discovered, and many of the rest printed for the first time from the original wills, thus preserving the vacillations and abandoned intentions of the testators. -- back cover.