‘He is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and intrepid pioneer, in all our poetic literature ... After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were made straight, for Shakespeare.’

While Swinburne greatly admired Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), Shaw was to dismiss him as ‘the true Elizabethan blank-verse beast’. Marlowe has always attracted controversy. At one extreme he is considered an atheist rebel and at the other a Christian traditionalist, a divergence which is reflected in the extraordinary range of his plays.

This volume contains all Marlowe’s plays: Dido, Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second and The Massacre at Paris.