Bartholomew Fair: A Comedy

by Ben Jonson

"Bartholomew Fair: A Comedy" by Ben Jonson is a Jacobean comedy first staged in 1614. Set at London's famous summer fair, the play follows an eclectic mix of characters—from a disguised justice to a hypocritical Puritan, from pickpockets to country simpletons—as they converge on Smithfield's chaotic marketplace. Through schemes, robberies, mistaken identities, and a climactic puppet show, Jonson creates a vivid panorama of early seventeenth-century London life, where social positions crumble and human folly takes center stage.