A Mad World, My Masters

Blurb

A Mad World, My Masters is a Jacobean stage play written by Thomas Middleton, a comedy first performed around 1605 and first published in 1608. The title is proverbial, and was used by a pamphleteer, Nicholas Breton, in 1603. The title later became the basis for the title of Stanley Kramer's 1963 film, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".
The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 4 October 1608, and first published in quarto later that year by the bookseller Walter Burre. In the play's final two Acts in the 1608 text, some characters have different names than in the prior three Acts — which suggests that the extant text is a revised version. A second quarto appeared in 1640, issued by the bookseller James Becket; the title page of Q2 states that the play had been "often acted" by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Salisbury Court Theatre. The play was revived at least twice in the Restoration era, and was adapted for other productions in the later 18th century.