CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE:POET & SPY CLOTH

About this book

Christopher Marlowes life was the most spectacular of any English dramatist. One of the great playwrights of his age second only to Shakespeare he was also a secret agent as well as the central figure in a murder mystery. Now Park Honan offers the most thoroughly researched and detailed biography of Marlowe to appear in over fifty years. Honan the acclaimed biographer of Shakespeare takes us from Marlowes childhood in Canterbury to his mysterious death in Deptford shedding much light on this shadowy individual. The book features new information on Marlowes six-and-a-half years at Corpus Christi College Cambridge his shocking blasphemy and his street fights his methods of preparing himself for writing and his alleged atheism. The book includes new facts about Marlowes adventures on the continent where he was caught with a counterfeit coin a hanging offense but talked his way out of the noose and was returned to England in irons. Honan describes his attraction to scientists such as Thomas Harriot and other hard-headed realists bent on innovation and free thought. In addition there are new details on spies and business agents that Marlowe knew a more exact account of the circumstances that led to his murder and a fresh description of his evolving relationship with Shakespeare. The author of Tamberlaine the Great and Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe changed the nature of the English stage. Researched in archives in England Europe and the United States this superb biography paints an unforgettable portrait of one of the most remarkable figures in English literature.