"A rigorous and sparkling exploration of what makes an artist. Essential and addictive reading: Stephen Greenblatts Kit Marlowe leaps from the page with all the élan and immediacy of his plays." -- Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet "Brilliant and riveting. . . . No critic has done more than Stephen Greenblatt to illuminate Marlowes world and work." -- James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare "A thrilling portrait of the English theatres 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." -- Sir Nicholas Hytner, former Artistic Director of Londons National Theatre "The era- and genre-transforming radicalism of Christopher Marlowes work has never been examined more cogently. . . . In gorgeous, gracefully authoritative prose, Stephen Greenblatt makes the miracle of artistic genius inhabit a recognizably human plane." -- Tony Kushner, Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Angels in America "A staggering achievement in character study, about the man who could have been king of the poets had Shakespeare not supplanted him. . . . From the formidable twenty-first-century mind of Stephen Greenblatt, this is an all-inclusive exploration of one of the sixteenth centurys most consequential and extraordinary talents." -- John Douglas Thompson, Tony Award-nominated actor in Tamburlaine, Parts I and II "A vivid back-stage tour of the turbulent world from which Marlowe emerged and what may have been his enduring impact on early modern culture. Essential reading." -- Farah Karim-Cooper, director, Folger Shakespeare Library "Stephen Greenblatts writing is effortless, his humor superb, his arguments unanswerable. He brings to life Marlowe in the way that he did Shakespeare. . . . In short, he has done it again: written a totally engrossing, compelling read." -- Eric Idle, Grammy Award-winning lyricist, and co-creator of the Monty Python comedy group "Effortlessly gripping and unputdownable." -- Neel Mukherjee, author of Choice "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 storytelling." -- Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl "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
