Northward Ho
stage play by Thomas Dekker and John Webster
Northward Ho (or Ho!, or Hoe) is an early Jacobean era stage play, a satire and city comedy written by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, and first published in 1607. Northward Ho was a response to Eastward Ho (1605) by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, which in its turn was a response to Westward Ho (c. 1604), an earlier play by Dekker and Webster. Taken together, the three dramas form a trilogy of "directional plays" that show the state of satirical and social drama in the first decade of the 17th century.
Date
Northward Ho could not have been staged prior to Eastward Ho, which was in existence by September 1605. John Day's play The Isle of Gulls, onstage in February 1606, refers to all three of the directional plays. This suggests that the last of them, Northward Ho, must have been performed during the last half of 1605.
Publication
Northward Ho was entered into the Stationers' Register on 6 August 1607, and was published later that year in quarto by the printer George Eld. The title page of the first edition identifies the two authors, as well as the playing company that staged the work, the Children of Paul's – the same troupe that performed Westward Ho.
Authorship
Scholars agree that Dekker is the predominant partner in the authorship of Northward Ho as in Westward Ho, while Webster is the minority contributor; yet, as with the earlier play, scholars disagree on the proportions of the two authors' shares.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Northward Ho” is stage play by Thomas Dekker and John Webster. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Northward, stage and play, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “stage play by Thomas Dekker and John Webster” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7059884. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1607, 1605, 1604 and 1606.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Northward Ho”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Northward Ho primary sources, Northward Ho archive and Northward research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Northward Ho”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Northward Ho” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.