The Massacre at Paris

By Christopher Marlowe

Explore the dark corridors of history with The Massacre at Paris, a dramatic retelling of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, one of the bloodiest events in 16th-century France. Crafted by the esteemed Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlow

• Language: English
• Publisher: Left of Brain Books
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9781396323522

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was a 16th century playwright, poet, and translator. Considered to be the most famous playwright in the Elizabethan era, Marlowe is believed to have inspired major artists such as Shakespeare. Marlowe was known for his dramatic works that often depicted extreme displays of violence, catering to his audience’s desires. Surrounded by mystery and speculation, Marlowe’s own life was as dramatic and exciting as his plays. Historians are still puzzled by the man, conflicted by rumors that he was a spy, questions about his sexuality, and suspicions regarding his death.

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The Massacre at Paris By

Christopher Marlowe

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Published by Left of Brain Books

Copyright © 2023 Left of Brain Books ISBN 978-1-396-32352-2

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About the Book

"The Massacre at Paris is an Elizabethan play by the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe. It concerns the Saint Bartholo-mew's Day Massacre, which took place in Paris in 1572, and the part played by the Duc de Guise in those events.

The Lord Strange's Men acted a play titled The Tragedy of the Guise, thought to be Marlowe's play, on Jan. 26, 1593. The Admiral's Men performed The Guise or The Massacre ten times between June 21 and Sept. 27, 1594. The Diary of Philip Henslowe marks the play as ne, though scholars disagree as to whether this indicates a new play or a performance at the Newington Butts theatre. The Diary also indicates that Henslowe planned a revival of the play in 1602, possibly in a revised version. A possible revision may have something to do with the surprising number of Shakespearean borrowings and paraph-rases in the text.

The only surviving text is an undated quarto that is too short to represent the complete original play. It preserves a lot of the violence and stabbing jokes but deletes most of whatever social value the play may have had, except for one long soliloquy near the beginning.

One clue to the original substance of the play is a page which survives in manuscript. It is known as the Collier leaf, after the Shakespearean scholar John Payne Collier, who is known to have been a notorious forger, although modern scholars think that this particular leaf is probably authentic. Despite including

a speech where one of the characters mutters obscene jokes to himself before shooting someone, it supplies a much longer and more interesting version of a blank verse speech that appears in the quarto. This suggests that the more thoughtful parts of the play were precisely the ones that tended to be cut."

(Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593)

Christopher Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 - 30

May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death.

Christopher Marlowe was christened at St George's Church, Canterbury, on 26 February 1564. He was born to a shoemaker in Canterbury named John Marlowe and his wife Katherine.

Marlowe attended The King's School, Canterbury (where a house is now named after him) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship and received his bachelor of arts degree in 1584. In 1587 the university hesitated to award him his master's degree because of a rumour that he had converted to Roman Catholicism and intended to go to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on schedule when