Shakespeare and Co: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Johnson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story

The Elizabethan and Jacobean periods are often known as the age of Shakespeare. One of the greatest of all English figures, Shakespeare is a dominant force in our imaginations, a yardstick for great poetry and plays, and a quintessential Englishman. Yet to consider him as an icon is to forget that he was one among a community of immensely talented writers and actors, and that he threw himself into the theatrical life of his time with dedicated professionalism. In a lifetime that spanned the greatest period of our drama he responded to the works of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, and Ben Jonson, wrote parts for a company of actors that included the great Richard Burbage, and collaborated with Thomas Middleton and John Fletcher. In Shakespeare and Co, one of the greatest living Shakespeare scholars breaks new ground in an engaging and illuminating study of the lives and careers of Shakespeare's contemporaries, a vital part of the time in which he wrote. Stanley Wells explores the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical scene, looks at the great actors Shakespeare worked with, and examines the lives and the works of the writers of his day, from Ben Jonson to Thomas Middleton to his later successors such as John Webster. He argues that it is only through remembering and celebrating the sheer richness and variety of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama that we can come to a closer understanding of the shadowy figure of Shakespeare himself.