The Alchemist

Ben Jonson

Plays Comic classics

Three collaborators exploit an absent master's house to sell extravagant promises to a succession of hopeful visitors.

Read the book Contents

Length: 12 chapters
Reading time: About 2 hr 4 min
Words: 29,564

About the book

Face, Subtle and Dol Common begin in a quarrel that threatens to expose the arrangement on which they depend. Their London household has become the setting for a profitable deception. Cooperation is essential, even when each participant has a powerful sense of personal importance.

Jonson's comedy makes the language of expertise a tool for working upon desire. The people who seek assistance bring ambitions that help make the imposture possible. Fast exchanges and competing roles turn the house into a small theatre, where maintaining a convincing performance requires constant negotiation behind the scenes.

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Plays Comic classics

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. Ben Jonson died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK. Includes the original dramatis personae, dedication, to the reader, argument.