Dark Renaissance

This brilliant and riveting book brings Christopher Marlowe out of the shadows, capturing the remarkable and sudden life (and the no less sudden and violent death) of this extraordinary Elizabethan poet and playwright. No critic has done more than Stephen Greenblatt to illuminate Marlowe’s world and work. Dark Renaissance is a worthy successor and companion to Will in the World

James Shapiro

This brilliant and riveting book brings Christopher Marlowe out of the shadows, capturing the remarkable and sudden life (and the no less sudden and violent death) of this extraordinary Elizabethan poet and playwright. No critic has done more than Stephen Greenblatt to illuminate Marlowe’s world and work. Dark Renaissance is a worthy successor and companion to Will in the World

James Shapiro

A thrilling portrait of the English theatre’s great transgressor. Stephen Greenblatt gives brilliant life to Marlowe's vaunting intellect, his reckless sexuality, his double-dealing with the security services and above all his theatrical imagination, which exploded out of nowhere to transform the Elizabethan stage

Nicholas Hytner

A thrilling portrait of the English theatre’s great transgressor. Stephen Greenblatt gives brilliant life to Marlowe's vaunting intellect, his reckless sexuality, his double-dealing with the security services and above all his theatrical imagination, which exploded out of nowhere to transform the Elizabethan stage

Nicholas Hytner

A rigorous and sparkling exploration of what makes an artist, Dark Renaissance conjures the Elizabethan age as a place of instability, succession anxiety, and burgeoning theatrical genius. Essential and addictive reading: Greenblatt's Kit Marlowe leaps from the page with all the élan and immediacy of his plays

Maggie O'Farrell

A rigorous and sparkling exploration of what makes an artist, Dark Renaissance conjures the Elizabethan age as a place of instability, succession anxiety, and burgeoning theatrical genius. Essential and addictive reading: Greenblatt's Kit Marlowe leaps from the page with all the élan and immediacy of his plays

Maggie O'Farrell

As evocative as any novel, Stephen Greenblatt takes the reader into the biting cold and dark of the little ice age of Elizabethan England and explores the network of spies, patrons, poets and fraudsters who copied, exploited and trapped Christopher Marlowe. A triumphant piece of story-telling

Philippa Gregory

As evocative as any novel, Stephen Greenblatt takes the reader into the biting cold and dark of the little ice age of Elizabethan England and explores the network of spies, patrons, poets and fraudsters who copied, exploited and trapped Christopher Marlowe. A triumphant piece of story-telling

Philippa Gregory

This is such a gleeful piece of writing. Greenblatt writes with his customary exuberance - which, of course, perfectly suits his principal subject, the life and work of Christopher Marlowe

Simon Russell Beale

This is such a gleeful piece of writing. Greenblatt writes with his customary exuberance - which, of course, perfectly suits his principal subject, the life and work of Christopher Marlowe

Simon Russell Beale

A brilliant and revelatory life of Christopher Marlowe. Dark Renaissance is a gripping, fascinating portrait, seasoned with Stephen Greenblatt’s superb scholarship. Unsurpassable

William Boyd

A brilliant and revelatory life of Christopher Marlowe. Dark Renaissance is a gripping, fascinating portrait, seasoned with Stephen Greenblatt’s superb scholarship. Unsurpassable

William Boyd

In his riveting new biography, Dark Renaissance, Harvard scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores Marlowe’s short, subversive life and argues that it was he, even more than Shakespeare, who ‘awakened the genius of the English Renaissance’ … Dazzling

Daily Mail

In his riveting new biography, Dark Renaissance, Harvard scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores Marlowe’s short, subversive life and argues that it was he, even more than Shakespeare, who ‘awakened the genius of the English Renaissance’ … Dazzling

Daily Mail

In previous books, including Will in the World, his best-selling biography of Shakespeare, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Swerve, Greenblatt emphasised the importance of cultural context in understanding literature, the so-called new historicism. In Dark Renaissance, he does so with dazzling effects, evoking England circa 1580 as an almost dystopian backwater

Associated Press

In previous books, including Will in the World, his best-selling biography of Shakespeare, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Swerve, Greenblatt emphasised the importance of cultural context in understanding literature, the so-called new historicism. In Dark Renaissance, he does so with dazzling effects, evoking England circa 1580 as an almost dystopian backwater

Associated Press

This is a good, solid and well-informed biography. Greenblatt has an excellent sense of what came before Marlowe… [and] vividly evokes the London of the time… Dark Renaissance is readable and trustworthy

Spectator

This is a good, solid and well-informed biography. Greenblatt has an excellent sense of what came before Marlowe… [and] vividly evokes the London of the time… Dark Renaissance is readable and trustworthy

Spectator

Right on cue comes the first major biography of Marlowe in two decades, written by the unquestioned eminence of Shakespearean new historicism … In its sweep, pace and scholarship, this book vividly contextualises Marlowe’s brilliance as a dissident thinker and wildly innovative writer

Literary Review

Right on cue comes the first major biography of Marlowe in two decades, written by the unquestioned eminence of Shakespearean new historicism … In its sweep, pace and scholarship, this book vividly contextualises Marlowe’s brilliance as a dissident thinker and wildly innovative writer

Literary Review

This gripping biography focuses on Marlowe's brief, brilliant life ... Greenblatt fills [the book] with lively descriptions of the world that shaped this remarkable mind

The Times

This gripping biography focuses on Marlowe's brief, brilliant life ... Greenblatt fills [the book] with lively descriptions of the world that shaped this remarkable mind

The Times

An unforgettable literary biographical tour de force. Almost single-handed, [Greenblatt] has curated a rehabilitation of Marlowe's reputation as the greatest rival, collaborator and exact contemporary of the glover's boy from Stratford ... Greenblatt nails the playwright's staggering originality ... [A] brilliant portrait of a strangely modern, tragic figure, who's 'fatal genius' became the catalyst for this earthquake in English literature and culture

Independent

An unforgettable literary biographical tour de force. Almost single-handed, [Greenblatt] has curated a rehabilitation of Marlowe's reputation as the greatest rival, collaborator and exact contemporary of the glover's boy from Stratford ... Greenblatt nails the playwright's staggering originality ... [A] brilliant portrait of a strangely modern, tragic figure, who's 'fatal genius' became the catalyst for this earthquake in English literature and culture

Independent

In Dark Renaissance, Greenblatt tells this murky but exhilarating tale with pace and gusto ... No one can speculate with greater authority than Mr Greenlatt

Wall Street Journal

In Dark Renaissance, Greenblatt tells this murky but exhilarating tale with pace and gusto ... No one can speculate with greater authority than Mr Greenlatt

Wall Street Journal

Elegant, engrossing ... From aristocrats to shopkeepers to 'bawdy baskets' (prostitutes), Greenblatt captures the crowds that cut across classes. His analysis is Shakespearean in spirit, crisp and conversational, tipped with puns and wordplay

Boston Globe

Elegant, engrossing ... From aristocrats to shopkeepers to 'bawdy baskets' (prostitutes), Greenblatt captures the crowds that cut across classes. His analysis is Shakespearean in spirit, crisp and conversational, tipped with puns and wordplay

Boston Globe

In Greenblatt's hands, literary scholarship, too, has taken a great leap forward. A scintillating biography of Christopher Marlowe by one of America's leading humanities scholars

Kirkus

In Greenblatt's hands, literary scholarship, too, has taken a great leap forward. A scintillating biography of Christopher Marlowe by one of America's leading humanities scholars

Kirkus

Greenblatt excels at immersing the reader in that time and place and has an ear for the delectable turn of phrase. The rich historical detail, thriller-like pacing, and an abundance of intrigue keep the pages turning

Booklist

Greenblatt excels at immersing the reader in that time and place and has an ear for the delectable turn of phrase. The rich historical detail, thriller-like pacing, and an abundance of intrigue keep the pages turning

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