Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, the son of a shoemaker, two months before William Shakespeare. He won a scholarship to the King's School and another to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he took his degrees. The university at first hesitated to grant his master's degree because of his absences until the Privy Council intervened, stating that he had done the queen good service, a hint that he may have worked for the government's intelligence network. In London he wrote Tamburlaine the Great, whose thundering blank verse, praised by Ben Jonson as 'Marlowe's mighty line', transformed the English stage. Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward the Second followed, along with the poem Hero and Leander and a translation of Ovid. His life was turbulent: he was involved in a street fight in which a man died, and he was accused of atheism. In May 1593, at a house in Deptford, he was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer in a quarrel over a bill, at twenty-nine. His plays deeply influenced the young Shakespeare.

Christopher Marlowe is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Accused of atheism and blasphemy in his lifetime; some historians think these accusations, like rumours of Catholic sympathies, may reflect his work as a government spy. His beliefs are disputed. Source: Wikipedia