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The first decade of the Jacobean age witnessed a sudden profusion of comedies satirizing city life; among these were comedies by Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton, as well as the bulk of the repertory of the newly-established children’s companies at Blackfriars and Paul’s. The platwrights self-consciously forged a new genre which attracted London audiences with its images of folly and vice in Court and City, and hack-writing dramatists were prompt to cash in on a new theatrical fashion. The genre developed under the dominant influence of Ben Jonson, but there was a good deal of cross-fertilization between the playwrights, and this study presents such well-known plays as Volpon, The Dutch Courtezan, and even Measure for Measure, in the context of the developing genre as much as the individual author’s oeuvre.