Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe, the spy who changed literature for ever
The 16th-century playwright led a violent, tempestuous and clandestine short life but alone among his contemporaries he speaks to us in a familiar way
Thomas Kyd may have delighted Elizabethan audiences, but he still wasn’t a patch on Shakespeare
Brian Vickers aims to ‘restore’ Kyd to greatness – but claiming too much on too little evidence does the playwright no favours
Where there’s a will…
Determined sceptics will always find reasons to cast doubt on Shakespeare’s authorship, but who cares in the end, Emma Smith wonders
The first Cambridge spy
For his 15th novel, the espionage writer Alan Judd turns his hand to the mystery of Christopher Marlowe’s death. The…
Courting Sultana Isabel
The idea for a mechanical cock was never going to work. In 1595 the English ambassador to Constantinople, Edward Barton,…
