The Alchemist, 1612

Ben Jonson's comedy The Alchemist, first performed in 1610, follows con artists in London as they exploit the greed and credulity of their victims through promises of alchemical gold. The play presents a sharp satirical view of human folly and desire, depicting the schemes and counterschemes of its cast as the con unravels. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ranked it among the three most perfect plots in literature, and it remains widely regarded as Jonson's finest comic work, its popularity sustained across centuries.