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This Marlowe
"Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity's eternal motivations." -- Quill & Quire
"In Butler Hallett's hands, Kit comes off as a fascinating and contradictory figure, part martyred freethinker and part unscrupulous opportunist." -- Winnipeg Review
"Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought." -- Toronto Star
1593. Queen Elizabeth reigns from the throne while two rival spymasters — Sir Robert Cecil and the Earl of Essex — plot from the shadows. Their goal? To control succession upon the aged queen's death. The man on which their schemes depend? Christopher Marlowe, a cobbler's son from Canterbury who has defied expectations and become an accomplished poet and playwright. Now that the plague has closed theatres, Marlowe must resume the work for which he was originally recruited: intelligence and espionage.
Fighting to stay one step ahead in a dizzying game that threatens the lives of those he holds most dear, Marlowe comes to question his allegiances and nearly everything he once believed. As tensions mount, he is tossed into an impossible bind. He must choose between paths that lead either to wretched guilt and miserable death or to love and honour.
An historical novel with a contemporary edge, This Marlowe measures the weight of the body politic, the torment of the flesh, and the state of the soul.
"In Butler Hallett's hands, Kit comes off as a fascinating and contradictory figure, part martyred freethinker and part unscrupulous opportunist." -- Winnipeg Review
"Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought." -- Toronto Star
1593. Queen Elizabeth reigns from the throne while two rival spymasters — Sir Robert Cecil and the Earl of Essex — plot from the shadows. Their goal? To control succession upon the aged queen's death. The man on which their schemes depend? Christopher Marlowe, a cobbler's son from Canterbury who has defied expectations and become an accomplished poet and playwright. Now that the plague has closed theatres, Marlowe must resume the work for which he was originally recruited: intelligence and espionage.
Fighting to stay one step ahead in a dizzying game that threatens the lives of those he holds most dear, Marlowe comes to question his allegiances and nearly everything he once believed. As tensions mount, he is tossed into an impossible bind. He must choose between paths that lead either to wretched guilt and miserable death or to love and honour.
An historical novel with a contemporary edge, This Marlowe measures the weight of the body politic, the torment of the flesh, and the state of the soul.
448 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2016
5 people are currently reading
623 people want to read
About the author
Michelle Butler Hallett
7 books44 followersAuthor's surname is Butler Hallett, not Hallett.
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Michelle Butler Hallett, she/her, writes fiction about violence, evil, love and grace. Author of the novels Constant Nobody, This Marlowe, deluded your sailors, Sky Waves and Double-blind, and the short story collection The shadow side of grace. Her short stories are widely anthologized in Hard Ol' Spot, The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, Everything Is So Political, Running the Whale's Back, and Best American Mystery Stories 2014 . Michelle Butler Hallett lives in St. John's.
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Butler Hallett's work, at once striking, memorable and difficult to categorize, wrestles with themes of power, evil, complicity, illness, identity, hope, love, and grace.
2016's This Marlowe wrestles with the agonies of faith, duty, and love against a setting of religious and political turmoil, quotidian surveillance, widespread fear for security of one's country, questions of how to help an influx of refugees, the weight of the body politic, and the state of the soul. The Miramichi Reader calls This Marlowe "a masterful work of historical fiction," adding that the novel "assuredly has all the intrigue of a modern spy thriller." The Toronto Star notes "Butler Hallett's prose is at once canny and tender ... perfectly paced and gracefully wrought, This Marlowe is superior historical fare," while Quill & Quire remarked "Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity’s eternal motivations, This Marlowe holds up extremely well next to the most lauded recent historical fiction."
Butler Hallett's 2011 novel, deluded your sailors, follows characters in early eighteenth-century England and colonies, as well as in a republic of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2009. Linked to her 2008 novel, Sky Waves, deluded your sailors stares down abuse, identity and friendship in a startling story of violence, loss and love.
In Sky Waves, Butler Hallett draws on her radio background and her troubled relationship with history to create an ambitious work. Described by the author as "a demented 'aural' culture novel," Sky Waves is told as a drew, that is, as the ninety-eight meshes in a row of a fishing net. Characters and storylines are networked together, almost as a mural against a timeline of 1901 to 2005. The Maple Tree Literary Supplement called the novel "a dynamic and shape-shifting work that redefines the project of storytelling, which complicates oral/aural tradition."
Double-blind, which was shortlisted for the 2008 Sunburst Award.The Sunburst jury said "Sanity, madness, torture in the name of science -- Double-blind is wonderfully original while chillingly based in history... The writing is incredibly layered, with metaphor and symbol perfectly balanced against the hard neutrality of scientific language."
Of the story collection The shadow side of grace, The Globe and Mail notes "demons are at work - the kind that lurk in the subconscious and surface, depending on the individual, as either despairing visions or acts of outright brutality... Butler Hallett seems often to be creating from a subliminal place, riding on intuition, unencumbered by the counsel of editors."
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Michelle Butler Hallett, she/her, writes fiction about violence, evil, love and grace. Author of the novels Constant Nobody, This Marlowe, deluded your sailors, Sky Waves and Double-blind, and the short story collection The shadow side of grace. Her short stories are widely anthologized in Hard Ol' Spot, The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, Everything Is So Political, Running the Whale's Back, and Best American Mystery Stories 2014 . Michelle Butler Hallett lives in St. John's.
---
Butler Hallett's work, at once striking, memorable and difficult to categorize, wrestles with themes of power, evil, complicity, illness, identity, hope, love, and grace.
2016's This Marlowe wrestles with the agonies of faith, duty, and love against a setting of religious and political turmoil, quotidian surveillance, widespread fear for security of one's country, questions of how to help an influx of refugees, the weight of the body politic, and the state of the soul. The Miramichi Reader calls This Marlowe "a masterful work of historical fiction," adding that the novel "assuredly has all the intrigue of a modern spy thriller." The Toronto Star notes "Butler Hallett's prose is at once canny and tender ... perfectly paced and gracefully wrought, This Marlowe is superior historical fare," while Quill & Quire remarked "Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity’s eternal motivations, This Marlowe holds up extremely well next to the most lauded recent historical fiction."
Butler Hallett's 2011 novel, deluded your sailors, follows characters in early eighteenth-century England and colonies, as well as in a republic of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2009. Linked to her 2008 novel, Sky Waves, deluded your sailors stares down abuse, identity and friendship in a startling story of violence, loss and love.
In Sky Waves, Butler Hallett draws on her radio background and her troubled relationship with history to create an ambitious work. Described by the author as "a demented 'aural' culture novel," Sky Waves is told as a drew, that is, as the ninety-eight meshes in a row of a fishing net. Characters and storylines are networked together, almost as a mural against a timeline of 1901 to 2005. The Maple Tree Literary Supplement called the novel "a dynamic and shape-shifting work that redefines the project of storytelling, which complicates oral/aural tradition."
Double-blind, which was shortlisted for the 2008 Sunburst Award.The Sunburst jury said "Sanity, madness, torture in the name of science -- Double-blind is wonderfully original while chillingly based in history... The writing is incredibly layered, with metaphor and symbol perfectly balanced against the hard neutrality of scientific language."
Of the story collection The shadow side of grace, The Globe and Mail notes "demons are at work - the kind that lurk in the subconscious and surface, depending on the individual, as either despairing visions or acts of outright brutality... Butler Hallett seems often to be creating from a subliminal place, riding on intuition, unencumbered by the counsel of editors."
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 24 reviews
April 30, 2016
This Marlowe by Michelle Butler Hallett is a spellbinding account of the last months of the life of English playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was murdered brutally under mysterious circumstances at the age of twenty-nine on May 30, 1593. The historical record suggests that Marlowe was an agent working for the English government who took on assignments on the European mainland, where tensions had arisen between Protestant and Catholic factions. The novel accepts Marlowe’s role in international espionage as fact and fleshes out the scant official record with sufficient incident and dialogue to make for high drama. In 1593 Queen Elizabeth, at age sixty, had no heirs, and there was no apparent successor to the throne. The lack of an heir was causing unrest at her court, and behind her back a struggle was underway to control the course of events after her death. Central to the action is the scheme hatched by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, to discredit his main rival, Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State and Marlowe’s employer, by implicating Marlowe in an incident that became known as the "Dutch church libel." Notices were posted around the City of London threatening Protestant refugees with violence while making overt reference to Marlowe’s plays. Butler Hallett slowly builds a story in which much whispering takes place behind closed doors, innocent bystanders fall victim to a byzantine political mechanism, and where everyone has an agenda. The author’s Elizabethan London is a damp, filthy place where concepts of innocence and guilt are malleable and even those who have done nothing wrong have reason to fear a knock on the door in the middle of the night. But Marlowe himself is the main attraction, a man with a conflicted and contradictory nature, whose self-destructive tendencies in the end spell his doom. Openly homosexual and ungodly in an age when being just one or the other would be enough to place him at odds with prevailing morals and civil and religious authorities, he does not bother to conceal his defiance and often baits and provokes those in a position to do him harm. This Marlowe asks a lot of the reader. It deploys a sizable cast of characters whose motivations are sometimes hazy, and it speaks in a voice that will sound alien to our modern ears. But this is a marvelous and masterful novel. Taking up the challenge it presents is more than worth the effort. (This excerpt is taken from a longer review to appear in Galleon issue V.)
July 28, 2016
There are authors and books that make a powerful first impression. When that feeling is sustained through subsequent encounters in person and with their writing, then I know I’m in the presence of someone with a gift. Michelle Butler Hallett is such an author.
I met Michelle in the early 2000’s at the Humber School for Writers in Toronto. We were both in Alistair MacLeod’s seminar group and we have each written about that honour. Michelle was a student whose commitment to form and language was articulate and impassioned, yet quietly and respectfully stated. I, who was secretly stumbling about on my keyboard, was in awe that anyone could find the words to speak about writing. Since that time, Michelle has produced five novels and several short stories. Writing is as natural for her as breathing.
Michelle’s most recent novel, This Marlowe, a work of historical fiction is set in the twilight of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It’s a tense spell-binding story of the last year of Christopher Marlowe’s life. Marlowe, the son of a cobbler, was also a graduate of Cambridge. The two facts, an unlikely combination for a poor boy, add fuel to the speculation that Marlowe may have been a spy for the Queen’s Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil. Marlowe’s violent death at the age of twenty-nine adds to the mystery and the rumors of espionage.
This Marlowe immerses the reader in the political machinations of an unstable time against the backdrop of Elizabethan England with all its beauty and grit. There were times when I felt like I could see, hear, smell, and touch the surroundings and experiences of Marlowe and his lover Thomas Kyd. The writing is taut, yet eloquent. Michelle has captured her characters, their language, phrasing and cadences in a way that is just shy of magic. She writes vividly about pain and suffering whether it comes from pneumonia, arthritis or torture.That same skill of offering the reader a virtual experience is equally present when she writes about love and compassion.
This Marlowe is one of the few books in my library I will be re-reading, as much for the pleasure of doing so as for the challenge of deciphering how Michelle Butler Hallett created this masterpiece.
Bonnie Lendrum is the author of Autumn's Grace, the story of one family's journey through palliative care.
I met Michelle in the early 2000’s at the Humber School for Writers in Toronto. We were both in Alistair MacLeod’s seminar group and we have each written about that honour. Michelle was a student whose commitment to form and language was articulate and impassioned, yet quietly and respectfully stated. I, who was secretly stumbling about on my keyboard, was in awe that anyone could find the words to speak about writing. Since that time, Michelle has produced five novels and several short stories. Writing is as natural for her as breathing.
Michelle’s most recent novel, This Marlowe, a work of historical fiction is set in the twilight of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It’s a tense spell-binding story of the last year of Christopher Marlowe’s life. Marlowe, the son of a cobbler, was also a graduate of Cambridge. The two facts, an unlikely combination for a poor boy, add fuel to the speculation that Marlowe may have been a spy for the Queen’s Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil. Marlowe’s violent death at the age of twenty-nine adds to the mystery and the rumors of espionage.
This Marlowe immerses the reader in the political machinations of an unstable time against the backdrop of Elizabethan England with all its beauty and grit. There were times when I felt like I could see, hear, smell, and touch the surroundings and experiences of Marlowe and his lover Thomas Kyd. The writing is taut, yet eloquent. Michelle has captured her characters, their language, phrasing and cadences in a way that is just shy of magic. She writes vividly about pain and suffering whether it comes from pneumonia, arthritis or torture.That same skill of offering the reader a virtual experience is equally present when she writes about love and compassion.
This Marlowe is one of the few books in my library I will be re-reading, as much for the pleasure of doing so as for the challenge of deciphering how Michelle Butler Hallett created this masterpiece.
Bonnie Lendrum is the author of Autumn's Grace, the story of one family's journey through palliative care.
March 14, 2016
This is a masterful work of historical fiction, right from the cover (look close to see the eyes and ears embroidered on Queen Elizabeth's robe) to the printed pages. The text (in particular the conversations) may deter some readers at first; it is very much like the style of English used in the King James Bible, but once you get used to this type of approach, you'll be able to follow the story, which assuredly has all the intrigue of a modern spy thriller.
November 15, 2022
Wow, lots to say about This Marlowe and this Marlowe as depicted by Butler Hallett! Beautiful writing, well-researched, grounded in the period, and full of historical characters who felt alive. Very heart-wrenching yet moments of humour as well! I definitely rooted for Kit Marlowe and this gave me a very different view of Robert Cecil as well--I quite liked him!
Great read!
Great read!
Read
December 26, 2022With due acknowledgement of my bias--the only one of my favourite authors that I actually married--this is her best. Until the next one. MBH explores recovery, in a multitude of manifestations. What will you serve? What will you bow to? WHat are the consequences? The 1590s live in this book. And it lived with her before publication almost as long as I had. For me, it’s like coming home, not because of the subject matter or the plot but because of its very existence. I think (bias again acknowledged) that Butler Hallett achieves more interiority with her characters than any other writer of a version of the Marlowe tale that I have read (and I read or re-read three together this week, along with Marlowe's own Edward II and Derek Jarman's Queer Edward II). The torture sequences really hurt. Questions of motivation go very deep. And the machinations by which governments operate and secrets are preserved remain relevant, no matter how much the technology used may have changed.
April 9, 2016
I really enjoyed "This Marlowe", it took me a bit to get into the writing style of Ms. Hallett, but once I did, it was a fun, fast read. I wanted to smack half the characters, which, to me, is always a sign of a great book. To become emotionally involved enough to sign out loud or roll your eyes or tear up (did all of those, lol).
August 7, 2022
Engrossing and vividly-crafted. Portrays the cutthroat acts of ambitious nobility beautifully. A heartbreaker of a book. 4.5 stars.
Read
June 2, 2016Following Amazon's purchase of GoodReads, I no longer post my reviews here.
If you would like to read my thoughts on this book, you can view them in the following places:
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Posting these links does not constitute permission to duplicate these thoughts anywhere, including corporate-owned sites.
If you read/liked/clicked through to see this review here on GR, many thanks.
If you would like to read my thoughts on this book, you can view them in the following places:
BuriedInPrint
BookLikes
LibraryThing
Posting these links does not constitute permission to duplicate these thoughts anywhere, including corporate-owned sites.
If you read/liked/clicked through to see this review here on GR, many thanks.
March 28, 2016
I will attempt to do this review justice. It was a wonderfully written book. It deals with life in the late 1500's. Religious overtones mixed with near Shakespearean dialogue. I found that as I read, I started to become accustomed to her style of old English language, customary in that time period. The conversations then became the story for me. I would say, while it tested me, it also enlightened me to life in this time. I would recommend it with ease, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
August 31, 2017
This morning I finished Michelle Butler Hallet's "This Marlowe". This novel will always be special to me. If you read it, you'll know why. It was more than 20 years in the making, from what I understand. It shows. The writing style is so beautiful. The story is told in a kind of dreamy mix of first and third person, using a dialog style that I have never seen before. No quotation marks, instead, simply a dash - to indicate speaking. Italics are used to indicate private musings. This helps to distinguish between the interior and exterior dialogues, all of which are written in the rich language(s) of the time: 1593. London. Shakespeare was in his most productive period, but not a mention of him, even once in this novel, and good for that. This novel is about Christopher Marlowe, famous for, amongst other plays, "Doctor Faustus", and "the Jew of Malta". He was murdered in a pub brawl (so it was reported), after entanglements of one sort or another, with the budding espionage industry that served in the protestant/catholic conflicts of the period. You can learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christo...
What makes this novel so good, is that it is damn gritty. Gritty, and intimate. Something about the refreshing lack of "he-said-she-said", or the psychological distancing effected by quotation marks, coupled with the flow of the language(s), dialects, contemporary slangs, crudity, and poetics, makes this an unusually engrossing read. It gets into your head, even though, you sometimes have to infer the meanings, draw them out of the context. It is a bit like what I would imagine "mainlining" a novel would be like. The result is vivid, intense, and ultimately tragic. Each character is picked most strongly by the differences in their mentality, and the interplay of what they say, and what they think, which we get through this mix of perspectives. It's awesome. The research that went into this book is astonishing, and yet the skill of making it appear so effortless, so natural, is more astonishing still.
I will give no spoilers: just know that you are in for a story about rival spies, love, passion, cruelty, politics, and language, and that NO punches are pulled. You will not forget it. You may read it more than once.
A quote that struck me, and I think describes the novel well:
"Pregnant England cried out for guidance. Social flux writhed, soon, many feared, to thrash in riot and fire. The very language flowed in cross-currents and riptides, each sentence, each word, chosen to act as layered nuance within intricate Latinate rhetorics for different possible meanings. Better days must come, would come: a cleansing."
Indeed, this a novel of nuance, and riptides, tension, release, and subtlety. Damn, 'tis fine. Enjoy it.
What makes this novel so good, is that it is damn gritty. Gritty, and intimate. Something about the refreshing lack of "he-said-she-said", or the psychological distancing effected by quotation marks, coupled with the flow of the language(s), dialects, contemporary slangs, crudity, and poetics, makes this an unusually engrossing read. It gets into your head, even though, you sometimes have to infer the meanings, draw them out of the context. It is a bit like what I would imagine "mainlining" a novel would be like. The result is vivid, intense, and ultimately tragic. Each character is picked most strongly by the differences in their mentality, and the interplay of what they say, and what they think, which we get through this mix of perspectives. It's awesome. The research that went into this book is astonishing, and yet the skill of making it appear so effortless, so natural, is more astonishing still.
I will give no spoilers: just know that you are in for a story about rival spies, love, passion, cruelty, politics, and language, and that NO punches are pulled. You will not forget it. You may read it more than once.
A quote that struck me, and I think describes the novel well:
"Pregnant England cried out for guidance. Social flux writhed, soon, many feared, to thrash in riot and fire. The very language flowed in cross-currents and riptides, each sentence, each word, chosen to act as layered nuance within intricate Latinate rhetorics for different possible meanings. Better days must come, would come: a cleansing."
Indeed, this a novel of nuance, and riptides, tension, release, and subtlety. Damn, 'tis fine. Enjoy it.
May 21, 2018
A gorgeous, complicated, intelligent, rip-your-heart-out book.
Christopher Marlowe is a fascinating historical figure, and Hallett takes this fairly mysterious man and gives us a look into the final few months of his life. There has long been speculation that Marlowe was a spy and that this was what ultimately led to the strange manner of his life, and the way in which Hallett explores this feels entirely real and reasonable, no matter how much it breaks your heart along the way.
In this version of events, Marlowe is in a romantic relationship with Thomas Kyd, and although there aren't many scenes between the two of them, their connection comes across very clearly and resonates throughout the book.
And the misery of Marlowe's final days, the horror and sorrow of his end, plays out in such a way as to stay with you and keep breaking your heart long after the story ends. The emotional power of Hallett's writing is incredible. I can't wait to read more of her work. Plus, Canadian! Wow, do we have some amazing writers.
I will say that the lack of quotation marks for dialogue takes getting used to; I've read other books that do this, and while I am not a huge fan, I am able to become accustomed to this particular stylistic choice. The highly stylized Elizabethan dialogue can also take several pages to adjust to, but it really helps to sell the world and time period and the atmosphere of Elizabethan England.
Overall, I loved this book. I can see how it would be a difficult read for people, and it is definitely not a "beach" read, but it is an immensely rewarding and complex piece of writing. Please do give it a try if you're at all interested in it. I think you'll be impressed.
Christopher Marlowe is a fascinating historical figure, and Hallett takes this fairly mysterious man and gives us a look into the final few months of his life. There has long been speculation that Marlowe was a spy and that this was what ultimately led to the strange manner of his life, and the way in which Hallett explores this feels entirely real and reasonable, no matter how much it breaks your heart along the way.
In this version of events, Marlowe is in a romantic relationship with Thomas Kyd, and although there aren't many scenes between the two of them, their connection comes across very clearly and resonates throughout the book.
And the misery of Marlowe's final days, the horror and sorrow of his end, plays out in such a way as to stay with you and keep breaking your heart long after the story ends. The emotional power of Hallett's writing is incredible. I can't wait to read more of her work. Plus, Canadian! Wow, do we have some amazing writers.
I will say that the lack of quotation marks for dialogue takes getting used to; I've read other books that do this, and while I am not a huge fan, I am able to become accustomed to this particular stylistic choice. The highly stylized Elizabethan dialogue can also take several pages to adjust to, but it really helps to sell the world and time period and the atmosphere of Elizabethan England.
Overall, I loved this book. I can see how it would be a difficult read for people, and it is definitely not a "beach" read, but it is an immensely rewarding and complex piece of writing. Please do give it a try if you're at all interested in it. I think you'll be impressed.
October 7, 2022
Hats off to Michelle Butler Hallett for masterfully recreating the world of poet and playwright and spy, Christopher Marlowe. Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Christopher must negotiate intrigue at the court, foreign influencers, religious upheaval, and his relationship withThomas Kyd while trying to pursue his art, not to mention trying to stay alive in a time when torture was common and heads were practically as cheap as chickens.
I felt immersed in 16th C London through Hallett’s description and the use of period language and dialogue. While the latter may take some getting used to, it is well worth the effort. Without it, the novel would lose much of its authenticity.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough for lovers of historical fiction. And the choice of cover is superb—that says it all!
Well done!
I felt immersed in 16th C London through Hallett’s description and the use of period language and dialogue. While the latter may take some getting used to, it is well worth the effort. Without it, the novel would lose much of its authenticity.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough for lovers of historical fiction. And the choice of cover is superb—that says it all!
Well done!
May 22, 2019
This book is written in the language of the era and so casts the reader into the subterfuge of Tudor society. The plot revolves around who will succeed Elizabeth I, (although she doesn't make an appearance). This book is well thought out and well written with vivid descriptions that overwhelm our senses.
January 26, 2020
Brilliant
May 3, 2020
Easily one of my favorite books. It's tragic, it's funny, it's well researched, it's poetic, it's thrilling, and most importantly: it is very, very gay.
September 8, 2023
This was very hard to get into. I made it 100 pages but couldn't get interested, sadly. Disappointing since it is queer and local.
January 31, 2026
Gorgeously written and utterly compelling - a gem of a novel.
February 13, 2020
I love how Kit is brought to life. His really is a rapier wit and it pierces one right where it ought. We should be blessed in the 21st century to curse so eloquently as they did in the 16th.
September 26, 2025
A very interesting book, but a little hard to follow sometimes.
May 7, 2016
Thanks to the 49th Shelf and Goose Lane Editions for a free copy of This Marlowe.
This is a beautifully written, well researched work of historical fiction. It is the story of the last 2 months of Christopher Marlowe's life, steeped in intrigue and suspense.
With rich detail and language specific to the period, I felt like I was right in 1593.
It took a bit of getting used to the old English dialogue and it wasn't a quick and easy read but well worth the effort.
This is a beautifully written, well researched work of historical fiction. It is the story of the last 2 months of Christopher Marlowe's life, steeped in intrigue and suspense.
With rich detail and language specific to the period, I felt like I was right in 1593.
It took a bit of getting used to the old English dialogue and it wasn't a quick and easy read but well worth the effort.
August 4, 2016
A powerful portrayal of playwright Christopher Marlowe as a reluctant spy who only wants to save his lover, Thomas Kyd, from imprisonment and torture. Devastating in its rendering of the violence of Elizabethan England, both state inflicted and domestic.
May 14, 2016
Richly textured story with vivid characters from the last months of Christopher Marlowe's life. Elizabethan dialogue is well captured as well as the gritty circumstances of the time.
June 12, 2023
Ainslie- This book is so full of rich detail and elaborate drama woven with strands of love, tragedy and power. LOVED IT.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 24 reviews