HISTORY PLAY

The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe

What if Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to the Continent and went on to write the works we now attribute to Shakespeare? Working with hard facts and a healthy dose of conjecture, History Play questions the purpose of biography in a daring, imaginative narrative. As he ruffles the ruffs of Elizabethan society, Marlowe travels into a continent tinged with panic, beset with secrets, yet delighting in erudition.

Praise FOR HISTORY PLAY

“With gobsmacking audacity, Bolt recreates an alternative life of Marlowe that compellingly views the known facts from a different angle.”
The Independent

“A triumph…. It has both a serious remit and enough puns and anagrams to make Shakespeare (or possibly Marlowe) blush. It made me laugh out loud. And, most of all, it made me want to go back to the plays. This was a book that needed to be done perfectly or not at all. It is perfect.”
The Spectator

History Play‘s rich and meticulously researched portrait of the 16th and 17th centuries is written with a keen sense of Elizabethan metaphor and contemporary analogy.”
Times Literary Supplement

“With gobsmacking audacity, Bolt recreates an alternative life of Marlowe that compellingly views the known facts from a different angle.”

The Independent

“A triumph…. It has both a serious remit and enough puns and anagrams to make Shakespeare (or possibly Marlowe) blush. It made me laugh out loud. And, most of all, it made me want to go back to the plays. This was a book that needed to be done perfectly or not at all. It is perfect.”

The Spectator

History Play‘s rich and meticulously researched portrait of the 16th and 17th centuries is written with a keen sense of Elizabethan metaphor and contemporary analogy.”

Times Literary Supplement

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Read more on the Marlowe-Shakespeare authorship question http://marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.com/