Marlowe

Move over William Shakespeare! Here comes the brilliant Christopher Marlowe. Son of a shoemaker, Marlowe becomes a student at Cambridge University. There, in addition to his Divinity studies, he translates erotic poetry and sets out on his future career as a playwright. Moving to London, he is recruited to become an informer for Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Marlowe is sent to France to spy on the queen's potential Catholic enemies. Returning home, Marlowe meets the up-and-coming Shakespeare and becomes the talk of the town and of the Elizabethan theatre as a result of his successful plays, Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine. However, he makes several important enemies through his unconventional views and alleged sexual preferences. They cause his meteoric career to crash in unexpected circumstances. Based on much literary and historical research, D. Lawrence-Young has written a fascinating novel about a great playwright who was never allowed to develop his full potential.