Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters

Jackie Watson is an independent scholar, with a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London. Her published work has centred on early modern law and literature, and on literary ideas of the senses in the early modern period. She is co-chair of the Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court project. She contributed chapters to Playing and Playgoing in Early Modern England, edited by Simon Smith and Emma Whipday (2022) and to Shakespeare/Sense, edited by Simon Smith (2020). Jackie co-edited The Senses in Early Modern England, 1558–1660 (2015).

• Acknowledgements Series Editors' PrefaceA Note on Letter Transcriptions Introduction: ‘Common Secrets, Common Dangers’: The Origins of a ‘Tragical’ Courtier 1. The Path to Power at the Jacobean Court: Overbury’s Rise 2. Secretary, Conduit and Minion: Overbury’s Courtly Zenith 3. The Fall of Icarus: Overbury’s Imprisonment 4. Royal Prerogative and the Role of Counsel in The Winter’s Tale 5. Defining Successful Courtiership in The Duchess of Malfi 6.Chapman’s Changing Worlds: From Bussy D’Ambois to The Revenge AfterwordReferencesIndex

Jackie Watson’s rich and generative book does two things with real brio. Firstly and archivally, she reimagines Overbury as courtier through a detailed, lucid attention to his letters, reading his life rather than his sensational death. Secondly, and conceptually, she makes the case for correspondence as compelling drama.