MS. Egerton 1994 is a manuscript collection of English Renaissance plays

English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...

, now in the Egerton Collection

Egerton Collection

The Egerton Collection is a collection of 67 manuscripts bequeathed to the British Museum in 1829 along with £12,000 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater. To this was added £3000 in 1838 by Egerton's cousin, Charles Long, Baron Farnborough.The Collection is now in the British Library....

 of the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

. Probably prepared by the actor William Cartwright

William Cartwright (actor)

William Cartwright was an English actor of the seventeenth century, whose career spanned the Caroline era to the Restoration. He is sometimes known as William Cartwright, Junior or William Cartwright the younger to distinguish him from his father, another William Cartwright William Cartwright...

 around 1642, and later presented by him to Dulwich College

Dulwich College

Dulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...

, the collection contains unique copies of several Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline dramas, including significant works like Edmund Ironside

Edmund Ironside (play)

Edmund Ironside, or War Hath Made All Friends is an anonymous Elizabethan play that depicts the life of Edmund II of England. At least three critics have suggested that it is an early work by William Shakespeare.-Text:...

and Thomas of Woodstock.

The collection contains fourteen plays and an anonymous masque

Masque

The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...

:

• The Elder Brother
  The Elder Brother
  The Elder Brother is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. Apparently dating from 1625, it may have been the last play Fletcher worked on before his August 1625 death.-Date:...
  
  , by John Fletcher
  John Fletcher (playwright)
  John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
  
   and Philip Massinger
  Philip Massinger
  Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
  
   — folios 2–30
• DIck of Devonshire, attributed to Robert Davenport
  Robert Davenport
  Robert Davenport was an English dramatist of the early seventeenth century. Nothing is known of his early life or education; the title pages of two of his plays identify him as a "Gentleman," though there is no record of him at either of the two universities or the Inns of Court. Scholars have...
  
    — ff. 30–52
• The Captives, by Thomas Heywood
  Thomas Heywood
  Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...
  
   — ff. 52–74
• The Escapes of Jupiter, by Thomas Heywood — ff. 74–96
• Edmund Ironside
  Edmund Ironside (play)
  Edmund Ironside, or War Hath Made All Friends is an anonymous Elizabethan play that depicts the life of Edmund II of England. At least three critics have suggested that it is an early work by William Shakespeare.-Text:...
  
  — ff. 96–119
• Charlemagne — ff. 119–36
• The Fatal Marriage or A Second Lucretia — ff. 136–61
• Thomas of Woodstock — ff. 161–86
• The Lady Mother
  The Lady Mother
  The Lady Mother is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy generally attributed to Henry Glapthorne, and dating from the middle 1630s. Never printed in its own era, the play survived in a manuscript marked as a theatre prompt-book, revealing significant details about the stage practice of its...
  
  , by Henry Glapthorne
  Henry Glapthorne
  Henry Glapthorne was a Caroline era dramatist.Glapthorne was baptized in Cambridgeshire, the son of Thomas Glapthorne and Faith nee Hatcliff. His father was a bailiff of Lady Hatton, the wife of Sir Edward Coke...
  
   — ff. 186–211
• A masque — ff. 212–23
• The Two Noble Ladies and the Converted Conjurer — ff. 224–44
• Nero — ff. 245–68
• The Poor Man's Comfort
  The Poor Man's Comfort
  The Poor Man's Comfort is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by Robert Daborne — one of his two extant plays.-Date, performance, publication:The play's date is uncertain, though it is generally assigned to the 1610–18 era...
  
  , by Robert Daborne
  Robert Daborne
  Robert Daborne was an English dramatist of the Jacobean era.Little is known for certain of his birth, background, or early life; he may have come from a family in Guildford, Surrey. He is now thought to have been a "sizar"—an undergraduate exempt from fees—at King's College, Cambridge...
  
   — ff. 268–93
• Love's Changelings' Change — ff. 293–318
• The Launching of the Mary, attributed to Walter Mountfort — ff. 319–49.

Thomas of Woodstock was one of Shakespeare's

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 sources for his Richard II

Richard II (play)

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...

, and Edmund Ironside has been attributed to Shakespeare by some commentators.

Some of the plays, like The Two Noble Ladies and the two Heywood works, are judged to be autograph scripts, in the handwriting of the authors. (The Escapes of Jupiter consists of excerpts from Heywood's The Golden Age and The Silver Age.) The untitled masque in the collection has strong commonalities with the work of George Chapman

George Chapman

George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...

; it borrows a long passage from The Tragedy of Byron

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France is a Jacobean tragedy by George Chapman, a two-part play or double play first performed and published in 1608...

, suggesting Chapman influence rather than authorship.

The Launching of the Mary is a "first draft, written at different times, with different inks, and on different paper." The play was written at sea, and is "little more or less than a eulogy of the East India Company."

The anonymous works in the collection have been the subject of attribution studies, and disagreements. Dick of Devonshire has been assigned to Davenport, but also to Heywood.