The
Black Book by Thomas Middleton
Robert
Greene, author of the Complete Cony-Catching, (available on the Ex-Classics
Website at https://www.exclassics.com/cony/conyintro.htm
) promised a more extensive review of Elizabethan criminals and prostitutes to
be entitled The Black Book. However,
he died in 1592 before he could write it.
Thomas
Middleton is best known as a dramatist, but could turn his pen to anything that
would bring in some money. He cashed in on Greene's popularity by bringing
forth a pamphlet called The Black Book
in 1604. In it, the Devil makes a tour of his minions in London, visiting
brothel-keepers, swindlers, gamblers, corrupt officials and other of his
followers.
This edition
is taken from The Works of Thomas
Middleton, Edited by A. H. Bullen, B. A. Vol. 8. Houghton Mifflin, New
York, 1886. Spelling has been modernised and some extra notes added to those in
that edition.