WHO KILLED KIT MARLOWE? A Contract to Murder in Elizabethan England

Hardback. Kit Marlowe was the bad boy of Elizabethan drama, a schemer and player who inhabited a seamy underworld in which plots, real and imagined, proliferated. When he died, apparently in a tavern brawl, in Deptford in 1593, stabbed through the eye at the age of 29, it seemed he had only met the death that had been waiting for him. But is this the whole story? Or had Marlowe become embroiled in political intrigue, touched at its edges by the dangers of alchemy, atheism and homosexual love, which made him such a threat that he had to be expunged? This investigation of Marlowe's death - and the life which provoked it - unravels the evidence to suggest a new answer to a murder which has puzzled us for over four centuries. A fast-paced narrative, illustrated with 8 pages of plates, this book allows us to gain an insight into Marlowe's complex world, and to understand for the first time the web of political intrigue, paranoia and terror that surrounded him. The brutal murder of the young playwright at the peak of his powers has intrigued and captivated his public for over 400 years. Now, this compelling journey through the evidence allows us to know who killed him. Illus., Notes, Select Bibliog. and Index. 278pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in F. dw.