Marlowe's highly controversial Edward II concerns the conflicting claims of love and politics, the urgency of homoerotic desire, and the cruelty with which unscrupulous authority can exert control. The boldness with which the work confronts these issues makes it unique in the period, yet this is the first critical edition of the play with full scholarly apparatus for twenty-five years.

Richard Rowland's edition presents an old-spelling text which adheres more closely to the first quarto of 1594 than any edition hitherto. The present volume is the third in the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe. A full commentary and introduction contextualize the play and give an entirely original account of the relationship betweeen the play, Marlowe's own age, and events which immediately followed it. By re-examining textual cruces, new interpretative possibilities are opened up, and the play is related to the language and ideas of Marlowe's contemporaries. A generous selection from Holinshed, Marlowe's principal source, is also included.

As critics and historians continue to debate attitudes to love, sexuality, and politics during the English Renaissance, this edition of Edward II extends that debate, offering a new understanding of the eroticism and violence of the play.