The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
New York: Harcourt Brace, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover; First Printing. F/F. Item #125483
Fine in Fine jacket. ; ISBN 0151759812 ; 8vo - 8" to 9" tall; Summary: "In 1593 the brilliant and controversial young playwright Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in a Deptford lodging-house. The circumstances were shady, the official account - a violent quarrel over the bill, or "recknynge"--Long regarded as dubious." "The Reckoning is the first full-length investigation of the killing, tracing Marlowe's shadowy political dealings, his involvement in covert intelligence work, and the charges of heresy and homosexuality against him. There is critical new evidence about his three companions on that last day in Deptford and about the sinister role of the informer, Richard Baines. More important, The Reckoning is an enthralling revelation of the extraordinary underworld of Elizabethan crime and espionage, a "secret theater" in which nearly every historical figure familiar to us, from hack poet to Queen's high minister, seems to have played a part. Here, in a tour de force of precise scholarship and dazzling ingenuity, Charles Nicholl penetrates four centuries of obscurity to reveal not only a complex and unsettling story of entrapment and betrayal, chimerical plot and sordid felonies, but also a fascinating vision of the underside of an entire culture."--Jacket. Awards: James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, 1992.Description: 413 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cmContents: Introduction: A Torch Turning Downward --pt. 1. The Killing. 1. Deptford, 1593. 2. The Official Story. 3. The Witnesses. 4. Widow Bull. 5. Libels and Heresies --pt. 2. Reactions. 6. The First Epitaphs. 7. The 'Goggle-eyed Sonnet'. 8. Independent Accounts. 9. Touchstone's Riddle. 10. Vaughan and the Perrots. 11. The Questions --pt. 3. The Intelligence Connection. 12. Faithful Dealing. 13. The Elizabethan Secret Service. 14. Thomas Walsingham. 15. Shaking the Foundation. 16. Robert Poley. 17. The Babington Plot --pt. 4. Poets and Spies. 18. 'Our Best for Plotting'. 19. Thomas Watson. 20. Fictions and Knaveries. 21. The Wizard Earl. 22. The 'Priest of the Sun' --pt. 5. The Low Countries. 23. New Masters. 24. Lord Strange. 25. The Dutch Shilling. 26. Marlowe and Poole. 27. Poley's Network. 28. Roydon and the King of Scots --pt. 6. The Frame. 29. 'This Cursed Cholmeley'. 30. The Damnable Crew. 31. The Dutch Church Libeller. 32. Ralegh and Essex. 33. The Drury Letter. 34. Marlowe's Liberty. 35. The Reckoning. Appendix: 'False Trails'.
Price: $18.00