This book offers readers worldwide the first edition of Juan Isidro Fajardo's Índice de todas las comedias impresas hasta el año de 1716 preserved in a single surviving manuscript in Spain’s National Library. Indispensable to scholars, this meticulously annotated critical edition of an early 18th-century catalogue documents some 2,200 plays written during Spain’s Golden Age by such world-class playwrights as Calderón, Lope de Vega, Tirso, Moreto, Rojas Zorrilla, and many others.

In this landmark edition, Fajardo’s manuscript reference work is transformed into an accessible and enduring scholarly resource. The editors' research have supplied 1,651 annotations to the play titles listed, many of which contain fresh insights into the theatre and culture of seventeenth-century Spain. Descriptions are given of early printed plays and of important manuscripts. Textual differences are discussed as are the sources from which dramas are derived. Many of the play entries address questions of authorship and dates of composition, while recording, too, early performances, the venues and the theatre companies involved. The notes usually conclude by commenting on studies, editions and translations relevant to the dramas concerned. With its Introduction, bibliographies and documentation, this critical edition is an invaluable medium through which to deepen understanding of the theatre, literature and society of Early Modern Spain.

Dedicated to Don Cruickshank, whose death occurred before the project's completion, this volume also contains articles which assess his influential career and publications, both focussed on the Golden Age of Spanish drama.

The chapters in this book, including the first edition of Fajardo’s catalogue of Spanish 17th-century printed plays, were originally published as a Special Issue of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies.