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Cover of The Senseless Counterfeit

Play

The Senseless Counterfeit

An idle frippery or play

In this third volume of the Bristolian Chronicles—and his only work for the stage—Richard Craven delivers a full-length revenge tragedy in verse, complete with masques, murder, and a cast of the most biblically sordid reprobates ever to grace the theatrical page.

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Published
2 June 2025
ISBN
979-8285488842
Chapters
24
In the book
91 entries

Overview

ENTER ONCE MORE INTO RICHARD CRAVEN’S BRISTOL—A RANCID, RHETORICAL HELLSCAPE WHERE VENGEANCE PLAYS TO THE CHEAP SEATS AND NO ONE ESCAPES UNMARKED.

At its centre stands Squalor: prologue-speaker, filth-savant, and gleeful herald of the action’s descent. Around him swarm tantrically deluded gurus, demented Tolstoyans, vengeful daughters, and moral pariahs locked in a spiral of ritual humiliation and baroque retribution.

The play is rendered in Craven’s signature iambic bile: a toxic brew of Jacobean intensity, Restoration excess, and Bristolian derangement. Satirical, obscene, and formally virtuosic, The Senseless Counterfeit is a theatrical artefact from a world that has abandoned redemption—and replaced it with performance.

Reviewed in

Cover of The Orphean Review The Orphean Review Review by Quentin Rathbone It is, make no mistake, a work of conscious depravity, and yet one must admit that within its pages a dreadful kind of genius is at play. Read the review →

People in this book

See all 14 in People with their descriptions

Places in this book

See all 19 in Places with their descriptions

Organisations in this book

See all 4 in Organisations with their descriptions

Artefacts in this book

See all 20 in Artefacts with their descriptions

Glossary in this book

See all 31 in Glossary with their descriptions

Chapters

  1. Front matter
  2. Dramatis Personae.
  3. Act 1, Scene i.
  4. Act 1. Scene ii.
  5. Act 1. Scene iii.
  6. Act 1. Scene iv.
  7. Act 1. Scene v.
  8. Act 2. Scene i.
  9. Act 2 Scene ii.
  10. Act 2 Scene iii.
  11. Act 2 Scene iv.
  12. Act 2 Scene v.
  13. Act 3. Scene i.
  14. Act 3. Scene ii.
  15. Act 3. Scene iii.
  16. Act 3. Scene iv.
  17. Act 3. Scene v.
  18. Act 4. Scene i.
  19. Act 4. Scene ii.
  20. Act 4. Scene iii.
  21. Act 4. Scene iv.
  22. Act 4. Scene v.
  23. Act 5. Scene i.
  24. Act 5. Scene ii.

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