Queer Virgins and Virgin Queans on the Early Modern Stage. By Mary Bly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 213. $55.00.

Bly's title actually refers to one particular early modern stage, the Whitefriars theater, while her book itself studies the seven or eight plays performed in that space over a nine-month period in 1607-8 by the short-lived Children of the King's Revels. Theater historians who have previously written about this anomalous troupe, myself included, have not known quite what to make of it. Unlike the two better-known children's troupes of the day, who performed at playhouses in Blackfriars and St. Paul's, the Children of the King's Revels had no historic connection to any grammar or choir school or chapel choir, and never performed at court. It was from the outset what the other children's troupes eventually became- a commercial venture organized by a syndicate of men with literary and business backgrounds.

Michael Shapiro
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign