The Honest Man's Fortune

The Honest Man's Fortune is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Nathan Field, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger. It was apparently the earliest of the works produced by this trio of writers, the others being The Queen of Corinth and The Knight of Malta.

The Honest Man's Fortune exists in two versions. The play received its initial publication in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio in 1647; it also survives in a manuscript dated 1613, identified as MS. Dyce 9 in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The MS. differs in some particulars from the printed text, most notably in its omission of Act V, scene iii and its alternate ending to the play's final scene.

The manuscript was produced by Edward Knight, the "book-keeper" or prompter of the King's Men. The last page of the manuscript contains permission for performance from Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, dated 8 February 1624 (or 1625, new style), a license confirmed in Herbert's own records. The play had passed into the possession of the King's Men as had several other plays from the Lady Elizabeth's company, along with key members (Field, Taylor, Benfield, Ecclestone). The King's Men's manuscript of 1624/5 was probably prepared for use as a prompt book for an intended revival, the original prompt book having been lost. Knight's MS. was likely made from the three authors' "foul papers" or working draft.

Knight's manuscript "corrects some slips made in the 1647 Folio version, simplifies the language, makes a number of cuts, some of them probably by Herbert as censor, omits one scene from the last act and alters the conclusion."

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