Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a man of extreme passions and a playwright of immense talent, is the most important of Shakespeares contemporaries. This edition offers his five major plays, which show the radicalism and vitality of his writing in the few years before his violent death.

Tamburlaine Part One and Part Two deal with the rise to world prominence of the great Scythian shepherd-robber; The Jew of Malta is a drama of villainy and revenge; Edward II was to inspire Shakespeare's Richard II. Dr Faustus, perhaps the first drama taken from the medieval legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil, is here in both its A- and its B- text, showing the enormous and fascinating difference between the two.

Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and puctuation. In addition, there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation.