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Here's an announcement (from the Manchester Univ. Press website) of a new book on the Lord Mayor's show, by Tracey Hill of Bath Spa University, which I think will be of wide interest to REEDers: Pageantry and Power is the first full and in-depth cultural history of the Lord Mayor’s Show in the early modern period. It reveals the lived experience of the Shows and sets them in the context of the wider ceremonial culture of early modern England. Central to the cultural life of the City of London in the early modern period, the Lord Mayors’ Shows were high-profile and lavish entertainments produced by some of the most talented writers of the time. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, Pageantry and Power explores the commissioning of and expenditure on the Shows, their reception by audiences, their use of allegory, symbolism and civic history, their engagement with contemporary politics, their connections to the professional stage and to the masque, and the relationship between the printed texts of the Shows and the actual events. This full-scale study of the civic works of Ben Jonson, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, Thomas Dekker, John Taylor and Anthony Munday enhances our understanding of their other, often better-known, dramatic works and contributes to a fuller estimation of their literary careers. Full details on the book are available on the MUP website at <www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/catalogue/book.asp?id=1204754> -- Abigail Ann Young (Dr), Associate Editor/ Records of Early English Drama/ 170 St George St Ste. 810/ Toronto Ontario Canada/ M5R 2M8 Telephone: 416-978-6500 (after 04/01/2010) / FAX: 416-978-6504 (as of 16/12/2009) [log in to unmask] List-owner of REED-L<http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/reed-l.html> http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/ => REED's home page http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/stage.html => our Web guide http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~young => my home page