Volpone is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies.
Poster for a 1939 production, part of the Federal Theatre Project
An illustration for an 1898 edition of Volpone by Aubrey Beardsley.
Production in Ptuj, 1940.
Volpone (Stephen Moorer) from a Pacific Repertory Theatre production at the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel, California, September 2000
Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."
Portrait by Abraham Blyenberch, c. 1617; oil on canvas painting at the National Portrait Gallery, London
Westminster School master William Camden cultivated the artistic genius of Ben Jonson.
The Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden was friend and confidant to Jonson.
Title page of The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (1616), the first folio publication that included stage plays
