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Arden of Faversham Author Biography

Nationality 1: English

The author of Arden of Faversham is unknown. The play was first published in London in 1592, although it may have been both written and performed several years earlier. Various theories have been advanced over the years regarding its author's identity. Minor Elizabethan dramatists, such as Robert Greene and George Peele, have been mentioned, but because of the high quality of the play, scholars have often investigated the possibility that it was written by one of the three most accomplished dramatists of the era: Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, or William Shakespeare.

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) is known in the early 2000s for his play, The Spanish Tragedy. But few other plays can be confidently ascribed to him. The case for his authorship of Arden of Faversham once rested on a belief that Kyd wrote the play Soliman and Perseda and a pamphlet, The Murder of...
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