Of English Renaissance dramatists, Christopher Marlowe arguably stands second only to Shakespeare in the minds of students, directors, and theatre-goers. Yet despite this fascination with the man and his works, until the present Oxford English Texts edition there has been no complete edition of the works that not only gives them in their original spelling - with full textual apparatus - but also supplies a detailed commentary.

Marlow's Jew of Malta - a very popular play in its day, as entries in Henslowe's Diary testify - ranks as one of the most imaginative creations of Elizabethan drama, having no known antecedents for the main events of the plot, and no known counterpart for its protagonist. Here it is presented in a text derived from the 1633 Quarto, with an apparatus of emendations and a full commentary on sources, allusions, and the meaning of difficult passages.