SOURCE: Maidment, James, and W. H. Logan. “Prefatory Memoir.” In The Dramatic Works of John Crowne, edited by James Maidment and W. H. Logan, Vol. 1, pp. ix-xviii. 1874. Reprint. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1967.

In the essay below, originally published in 1874, Maidment and Logan survey Crowne's career and assess his merit as a dramatist.

Langbaine, in his account of the English Dramatic Poets, Oxon. 1691, 12mo, although a contemporary, mentions Crowne as “a person, now living, who has attempted all sorts of Dramatick poetry with different success. … If I may be allowed to speak my sentiments,” he continues, “I think his genius seems fittest for Comedy, though possibly his Tragedies are no ways contemptible, of all which, in my weak judgment, his Destruction of Jerusalem seems the best.” Then follows a list of his plays to the above date, with some notes as to the sources whence their plots have been...