Title page of the first quarto (1592)

Arden of Faversham (also called Arden of Feversham) is an Elizabethan play, first printed in 1592. It depicts the murder of one Thomas Arden by his wife and her lover, and their subsequent discovery and punishment. The play is notable as perhaps the earliest surviving example of "domestic tragedy," a form of Renaissance play which dramatized recent and local crimes rather than far-off and historical events. The author is unknown; some have claimed, on slender evidence, that it was William Shakespeare. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (690x913, 256 KB) Summary Title page of the first quarto of Arden of Faversham (1592) Licensing The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (690x913, 256 KB) Summary Title page of the first quarto of Arden of Faversham (1592) Licensing The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a... Quarto has several meanings: In bookbinding and publishing, quarto indicates the book size which results when four leaves of the book are created from a standard size sheet of paper. ... Elizabethan theatre is a general term covering the plays written and performed publicly in England during the reign (1558 - 1603) of Queen Elizabeth I. The term can be used more broadly to also include theatre of Elizabeths immediate successors, James I and Charles I, until the closure of public... Events January 30 - The death of Pope Innocent IX during the previous year had left the Papal throne vacant. ... In general usage, a tragedy is a drama, movie or sometimes a real world event with a sad outcome. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Source

Thomas Arden, or Arderne, was a successful businessman in the early Tudor period. Born in 1508, probably in Norwich, Arden took advantage of the tumult of the Reformation to make his fortune, trading in the former monastic properties dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538. In fact, the house in which he was murdered (which is still standing in Faversham) was a former guest house of the Benedictine abbey near town. His wife Alice had taken a lover, a man of low status named Mosby; together, they plotted to murder her husband. After several bungled attempts on his life, two hired killers known as Black Will and Loosebag (called Shakebag in the play) killed him in his own home. Alice and Mosby were put on trial and convicted of the crime; he was hanged and she burnt at the stake in 1551. Black Will was, like Alice, burnt at the stake; Loosebag escaped. Other conspirators were hanged in chains. One was wrongly convicted and was posthumously acquitted. Allegory of the Tudor dynasty (detail), attributed to Lucas de Heere, ca 1572: left to right, Philip II of Spain, Mary, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth The Tudor period usually refers to the historical period between 1485 and 1558, especially in relation to the history of England. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ... Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) from 22 April 1509 until his death. ... Events Treaty of Nagyvarad. ... Faversham is a town in Kent, England, in the district of Swale, roughly halfway between Sittingbourne and Canterbury. ... A Benedictine is a person who follows the Rule of St Benedict. ... Gibbet is a term applied to several different devices used in the capital punishment of criminals and/or the deterrence of potential criminals. ...

The story would most likely have been known to Elizabethan readers through the account in Holinshed's Chronicles, although the murder was so recent, and so memorable, that it is also likely that it was in the living memory of some of the anonymous playwright's acquaintances. The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. ... Raphael Holinshed (died c. ...

The Play

The playwright followed the account in Holinshed's chronicle fairly closely, not only in the sequence of events leading to the murder and trial, but also in the unusually complex thematics of the event. From the first scene, Arden is a markedly ambiguous character; he is shown to be intemperate, domineering, and deceitful, having just in essence stolen a piece of land from a fellow townsman named Green. These touches of characterization do not, of course, alter the play's basic intent, announced on the title page, to show "the great malice and dissimulation of a wicked woman, the insatiable desire of filthy lust, and the shameful end of all murderers"; they do, however, reveal an ability to create complex characters decidedly above the norm for anonymous Elizabethan playwrights. A similar complexity is found in the murder scenes, which combine genuine tension, for instance in the assassins' attempts to find Arden on a foggy night, with almost bathetic humor, in their incompetent attempts on the man's life.

Text and history

The play was printed anonymously in three editions during the period, in 1592, 1599, and 1633. The last publication occurred in the same year as a broadsheet ballad written from Alice's point of view. The title pages do not indicate performance or company; while this absence is not unheard of, it does suggest that the play may have been written outside the mainstream of the Elizabethan theater. However, the play was never fully forgotten. For most of three centuries, it was performed in George Lillo's adaptation; the original was brought back to the stage in 1921, and has received intermittent revivals since. It was adapted into a ballet at Sadler's Wells in 1799, and into an opera, Arden Must Die, by Alexander Goehr, in 1967. George Lillo (1693 - 1739) was a British playwright and tragedian. ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The London Coliseum, home of the English National Opera The English National Opera (ENO) is Londons second opera company, after the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. ... Alexander Goehr (born 10 August 1932 in Berlin) is an English composer. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ...

The question of the text's authorship has been analyzed at length, but with no decisive conclusions. Claims that Shakespeare wrote the play, were first made in 1770 by the Faversham antiquarian Edward Jacob. Others have also claimed for Shakespeare, for instance Algernon Swinburne. These claims may be rejected as impressionistic, although it is not inconceivable that Shakespeare had a hand in certain scenes, and there is even some evidence that Shakespeare may have acted in the play, and played the part of Shakebag. Apart from this and that Arden of Feversham's publisher, Edward White, also published an edition of Titus Andronicus, there is no solid evidence to link this play with Shakespeare, apart from the recorded fact that the play was performed at least once by The Lord Chamberlain's players, a company with which Shakespeare was an actor. Marlowe has also been advanced; the strong emotions of the characters and the lack of a strongly marked virtuous hero are certainly in line with Marlowe's practice. Moreover, Marlowe was raised in nearby Canterbury and is likely to have had the knowledge of the area evinced by the play. Another candidate is Thomas Kyd who at one tiem shared rooms with Marlowe. However, without more knowledge of the text's history than is possessed at present, all ascriptions are bound to be speculative in nature. William Shakespeare—born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (O.S.), May 3, 1616 (N.S.)—has a reputation as the greatest of all writers in English. ... Edward Jacob was a writer and mayor from Kent, the son of Edward Jacob, surgeon of Canterbury, mayor of that city in 1727, who died in 1756. ... Algernon Swinburne, Portrait by Rossetti Algernon Charles Swinburne (April 5, 1837 – April 10, 1909) was a Victorian era English poet. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Christopher Marlowe (baptised February 26, 1564–May 30, 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. ... Thomas Kyd (1558 - 1594) was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. ...

In the summer of 2001 in Faversham, the play was performed for a season in the garden of Arden's house, the scene of the murder.