ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the approach recommended by Sandra Hindman and offers 'a collection of microhistories' – the stories of individual users and their idiosyncratic habits – as the foundation on which a new history of reading early printed drama might be built. It considers some sixteenth-century book-lists that feature plays. The chapter shows that several book-lists that catalogue the books owned by men between 1550 and 1600. The chapter discusses the study of readers' marks within the context of reading as a methodology. It also considers the place of plays within early modern Sammelbande. The chapter looks at a range of evidence that includes book-lists and Sammelbande as well as marginalia, it offers a new history of reading early printed drama. It presents playbook readers of all kinds, from great men to anonymous or otherwise invisible users of both sexes.
