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  • Published: 7 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781847927149
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

Dark Renaissance

The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival, Christopher Marlowe




The thrilling story of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's greatest rival and inspiration - the writer who transformed Elizabeth art and culture, bringing England out of the darkness and into the light

Poor boy. Dark Star. Spy. Transgressor. Genius.

In brutally repressive Elizabethan London, artists are frightened; foreigners are suspect; crowds revel in animal fights and public executions. Into this crude world comes an ambitious boy whose uncanny ear for poetry and radical streak would transform England forever.

Enter Christopher Marlowe. A cobbler’s son from Canterbury, by the time of his murder in 1593 Marlowe is the most celebrated playwright of his time, setting the stage for an explosion of artistic creativity. Written by one of our greatest writers on the Elizabeth era, Dark Renaissance tells Marlowe’s story: a thrilling tale of daring, scandal and tragedy which reveals Marlowe to be a blazing talent who helped break England out of the cultural darkness and into the light.

  • Published: 7 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781847927149
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

About the author

Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of twelve books, including The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, which won the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, as well as the New York Times bestseller Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare and the classic university text Renaissance Self-Fashioning. He is General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and of The Norton Shakespeare, and has edited seven collections of literary criticism.

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