Ben Jonson of Westminster [Johnson]

New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, 1953. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. 9x6x1. First edition. Multiple chips and tears to jacket, front jacket flap price-clipped. Top page ridge foxed. 1953 Hard Cover. 380 pp. Ben Jonson, dramatist and poet, is the only person buried in an upright position in Westminster Abbey. He was born on 11th June 1572 but little is known about his parents. The family was of Scottish descent and his father became a clergymen. He was educated at Westminster School at the expense of one of the masters there, William Camden, and later possibly attended St John's College, Cambridge. He went into trade as a bricklayer for a short time (his stepfather's occupation). In Flanders he fought with the English troops there and on returning to London he married, but no children survived him. He became an actor and playwright. In 1598 he killed a fellow actor in a duel but escaped hanging and was imprisoned as a felon for a short time. This incident does not seem to have affected his reputation. His play Every Man in his Humour included Shakespeare in its cast. Jonson was a well-known writer of masques and a tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh's son. He became Poet Laureate in 1619 (although it was not a formal appointment).