The Devil's Law Case

The Devil's Law Case is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Webster, and first published in 1623.

The play's date of authorship and early performance history is unknown. The events upon which the play is based occurred in 1610, so that the drama must post-date that year. Some critics have seen signs of influence from Ben Jonson's The Devil Is an Ass in Webster's play, and so have dated it soon after the autumn 1616 premier of Jonson's play; but other scholars have favoured a date after 1620, based on contemporary allusions in the text.

According to one theory, Webster wrote his play for Queen Anne's Men, and specifically with the view that their lead actor Richard Perkins would play the protagonist Romelio. The play was designed to open the Phoenix Theatre – the renamed Cockpit Theatre after it was rebuilt following damage in the Shrovetide apprentices' riot in the spring of 1617.

The play was printed in quarto in 1623 printed by Augustine Matthews for the bookseller John Grismand. This first edition gives the play the subtitle When Women Go to Law, the Devil is Full of Business. Webster dedicated the play to Sir Thomas Finch, Baronet. The wording of the dedication — "let it not appear strange, that I do aspire to your patronage" — indicates that Webster was seeking Finch's support rather than responding to support already received. Webster made a similar appeal for support in his dedication of The Duchess of Malfi to George Harding, 8th Baron Berkeley. It is unknown if either of these appeals produced any positive result.

The Devil's Law Case partakes of a set of relationships with other plays of its era, centring on a plot twist involving a child's legitimacy and a mother's fidelity; some of the plays involved can be dated with some accuracy, while others cannot. The Fletcher/Massinger collaboration The Spanish Curate dates from 1622; The Fair Maid of the Inn, in which Webster collaborated with Fletcher, Massinger, and John Ford, dates from the mid-1620s, after the publication of The Devil's Law Case. The closest connection is between The Devil's Law Case and Lust's Dominion, though the manifold uncertainties of the latter play's date and authorship can provide no certain information about Webster's work.

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