The Masque of Kings

This play, having stood its trial in the theatre, and having emerged therefrom, not scathless but with some golden opinions, it is now offered in the usual fashion to those who for any reason wish to read what has been set down for the stage; but with this difference, that the whole play is here offered as it came first from the author’s hand, all its members intact, head, arms, legs, private parts and other flourishes, and without record of the chipping, chopping, haggling, hacking and disemboweling which is insisted on by most producers on Broadway and which may make a play shorter, or longer, or merely different but will never make it either good or bad.