Uneven in the extreme. John Webster had a brilliant wit and created memorable characters. This selection of his plays also shows a penchant for gross manipulation of his audience by manufacturing outrageous coincidences and irrational behaviors that fly in the face of reality. The Duchess of Malfi is the best of the three dramas and is so good that I wish some theatrical company would produce it. The White Devil and The Devil's Law-Case should be forgotten as they fail to display the gift Webster had. ( )

Webster is hardly the hack he is made out to be by his portrayal as a young boy in "Shakespeare in Love". At their worst, the plays in this book are highly entertaining. At their best, they are quite poetic. After 500 years or so, that is saying something. ( )

Webster is no longer seen as a macabre sensationalist but a great dramatist and poet, posessed of a deep and rich tragic vision.

The turmoil, both spiritual and social, of the seventeenth century and its resultant pessimism are clearly visible in the brutal world of Webster's plays. Accused of revelling in the charnel-house and the torture-chamber, Webster in fact shows himself to be a superb playwright able to exploit cruelty and horror to their full theatrical potential. Beneath the apparent anarchy of the plays is a profoundly religious belief in the moral nature of the universe, and a God who is both willing and able to intercede in the lives of men. As David Gunby comments in his Introduction: 'In The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi and, to a lesser extent, The Devil's Law-Case... all the resources of poetic drama are directed towards the embodiment of a complex, moving and deeply religious vision of human existence.'