page_title: Simon Forman
section_title: The "Book of Plays"
hierarchical_section_title: Simon Forman / Work / The "Book of Plays"
caption_attribution_description: English: First page of the description of the play Macbeth that Simon Forman saw in 1610.
context_page_description: Simon Forman was an Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnished after his death when he was implicated in the plot to kill Sir Thomas Overbury. Astrologers continued to revere him, while writers from Ben Jonson to Nathaniel Hawthorne came to characterize him as either a fool or an evil magician in league with the Devil.
context_section_description: Among Forman's manuscripts is a section titled the "Bocke of Plaies," which records Forman's descriptions of four plays he saw in 1610-11 and the morals he drew from them. The document is noteworthy for the listing of three Shakespearean performances: Macbeth at the Globe Theatre on 20 April 1610; The Winter's Tale at the Globe on 15 May 1611; and Cymbeline, date and theatre not specified. The fourth play described by Forman is a Richard II acted at the Globe on 30 April 1611; but from the description it is clearly not Shakespeare's Richard II. The manuscript was first described by John Payne Collier in 1836, and in the 20th century it was suspected as one of his forgeries. Most modern scholars now accept the section as authentic, but some still suspect it could be a forgery.
caption: Simon Forman's description of a production of Macbeth at the Globe Theatre, 20 April 1610. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 208, f. 207r.
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