1. Introduction: the imagined empire.- 2. ‘In this noble region’: politics and counsel in The Godly Queene Hester (Anonymous, c. 1530).- 3. ‘[A]dvice unto a Prince’: kingship and counsel in Kyng Daryus (Anonymous, 1565) and Cambises (Thomas Preston, c. 1560).- 4. ‘A crown enchas’d with pearl and gold’: wealth and absolute rule in The Warres of Cyrus (Richard Farrant, 1576-80) and Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2 (Christopher Marlowe, 1587-8).- ‘I wish to be none other but as he’: friendship and counsel in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) by John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins and contemporary closet drama.- 6. ‘Read[ing] philosophy to a king’: ideals of monarchy in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636).- 7. ‘[R]eally acted in Persia’: counsel, regicide and restoration in John Denham, The Sophy (1642) and Robert Baron, Mirza (1655).- 8. To ‘dispose of Crowns’: Conversion, the Authorityof Monarchy and the Issue of Succession: Elkanah Settle’s Cambyses (1667).- 9. ‘The king, who loves the Persian mode’: tyranny and excess in The Rival Queens (1677).- 10. ‘[D]evour’d by Luxury’: Gender, Governance and Absolute Kingship in John Crowne’s Darius, King of Persia (1688) and Colley Cibber’s Xerxes (1699).

This book is a study of the representation of the Persian empire in English drama across the early modern period, from the 1530s to the 1690s. Its wide focus, encompassing fifteen dramatic entertainments, both canonical and little-known, allows it to trace the changes and developments in the dramatic use of Persia and its people across the period. It explores what Persia signified to English playwrights and audiences in this period; ideas and associations conjured up by mention of ‘Persia’; and where information about Persia came from. It also considers how ideas about Persia changed with the development of global travel and trade, as English people came into contact with Persians for the first time. In addressing these issues, this book provides an examination not only of the representation of Persia in dramatic material, but of the broader relationship between travel, politics and the theatre in early modern England.  ​​Chloë Houston is Associate Professorin the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading, UK. 

"Persia in Early Modern English Drama: 1530-1699: The Imagined Empire is a shrewd, timely and compelling study of the multiple meanings and interests of Persia to English readers and theatregoers over almost two centuries. It proves an immensely rich subject of study - not just revealing English conceptions of Persia and the Middle East as these developed with increased contact, but serving again and again as a powerful vehicle for self-reflection, specifically on domestic political and cultural issues, across this period of significant political change.Beautifully written and extensively researched, the book is brimming with important details that will interest any scholar of early modern English culture as it traces how English dramatic engagements with Persia look inwards as well as outwards, whether in closet drama or on the public stage, during the very period in which English diplomatic, commercial and political engagements with the East were established and beganto take imperial shape." Professor Jane Grogan, University College Dublin, author of The Persian Empire in English Renaissance Writing, 1549-1622 “Carefully researched and clearly argued throughout, the book draws attention to specific contexts behind the ever-changing image of Persia from 1530 to 1699, and in the process offers compelling readings of fourteen plays about the Persian Empire, as well as important observations on the origins of imperialism and Orientalism in Britain." Kurosh Meshkat, The British Library, Persian Gulf History Specialist, The British Library, London, UK

Explores representations of the Persian empire in English drama across the early modern period Illustrates how ideas shifted over time, as global trade brought English and Persian people into contact Considers a wide corpus of primary plays