The Fair Maid of the Exchange is a play about how disability intersects with categories of identity such as sexuality and socio-economic status. First published in 1607 and undergoing three editions over the 30 years that followed, the play has been speculatively attributed to Thomas Heywood (definitive authorship remains questionable because no performance record has been found). The play’s subtitle, “with the Pleasant Humors of the Cripple of Fanchurch,” alerts readers to the physical impairment of a main character simply named Cripple. The plot and subplot center on finding a suitable husband for Phillis Flower and Moll Berry, daughters of a merchant and a usurer, respectively. Throughout the play, both women must negotiate the dangerous public space of the London Exchange, a space which amplifies their status as objects of male desire. Meanwhile, their parents and male guardians attempt to secure good matches for the women. Eventually, they are betrothed to men their parents approve of, but such betrothals are almost thwarted because both women are in love with Cripple, a figure whom no one, besides the women themselves, views as an appropriate suitor. Despite the women’s flirtatious advances, Cripple refuses them. He instead helps Frank, one of three brothers in love with Phillis, to woo her successfully. Cripple counsels Frank to intercept love letters from Phillis’s other suitors and to send letters of his own instead, letters that the witty Cripple has written himself (or, at least, collected and preserved until needed). To seal the deal with Phillis, Cripple prods Frank into wearing his clothing and assuming his lame shape; it is in such disguise that Phillis is tricked into agreeing to marry Frank.