The Marlowe Papers A Novel

by Barber, Ros

• ISBN13: 9781250017178
• ISBN10: 1250017173
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-01-29
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

You're the author of the greatest plays of all time. But nobody knows. And if it gets out, you're dead. On May 30, 1593, a celebrated young playwright was killed in a tavern brawl in London. That, at least, was the official version. Now Christopher Marlowe reveals the truth: that his "death" was an elaborate ruse to avoid a conviction of heresy; that he was spirited across the English Channel to live on in lonely exi≤ that he continued to write plays and poetry, hiding behind the name of a colorless man from Stratfordone William Shakespeare. With the grip of a thriller and the emotional force of a sonnet, this remarkable novel in verse gives voice to a man who was brilliant, passionate, and mercurial. A cobbler's son who counted nobles among his friends, a spy in the Queen's service, a fickle lover and a declared religious skeptic, Christopher Marlowe always courted trouble. Memoir, love letter, confession, and settling of accounts, The Marlowe Papersbrings Christopher Marlowe and his era to vivid life.

Author Biography

ROS BARBER was born in Washington, DC and raised in England. She is the author of three poetry collections and her poetry has appeared in Poetry Review, London Magazine, The Guardian among many other publications. Ros has a PhD in Marlowe studies and has taught writing at The University of Sussex for more than a decade. In 2011, she was awarded the prestigious Hoffman Prize for The Marlowe Papers. She lives in Brighton, England.

Table of Contents

"Terrifically accomplished and enjoyable . . . restores one's faith in English fiction." --Fay Weldon

 

"Searing poetry meets compelling narrative in a historical tour de force that had me ripping through the pages. My only complaint is that everything else I read for a while now will, I fear, suffer by comparison." --Robyn Young, author of The Fall of the Templars and Brethren

"For me personally, this is the most complete Marlowe I've ever encountered." - Will Self, author of The Book of Dave

 

"A story of ambition, infamy, beer, cunning, facepaint, red herrings, knives, and pen and paper, [The Marlowe Papers] is not only an homage to Marlowe but a celebration of poetry - and of its power to allow the dead to speak." --Blake Morrison, author of And When Did You Last See Your Father?

 

“The best book I've read for a long time. Truly innovative, truly original, and a powerful poetic journey to another truth.  Ros Barber has told a great story, in a fascinating way, so fascinating that she had someone like me gripped to the very end. This really is a joy to read and a true work of art.”--Benjamin Zephaniah, author of Gangsta Boy and Face

“The Marlowe Papers is a bravura performance: a noir thriller in doublet and hose. The life of Kit Marlowe, the baddest boy of English Literature, is great fare for any writer. There’s espionage and sex; murder and treachery; and, this being England, a healthy dose of cross-dressing. And Barber serves it, steaming hot.” --Simon Worrall, author of The Poet and The Murderer

"The Marlowe Papers is the best read, so far, this year." --Sunday Express, UK

 

Excerpts

Marlowe Papers, The

THE MARLOWE PAPERS

DEATH S A GREAT DISGUISER

Church-dead. And not a headstone in my name. No brassy plaque, no monument, no tomb, no whittled initials on a makeshift cross, no pile of stones upon a mountain top. The plague is the excuse; the age's curse that swells to life as spring gives way to summer, to sun, unconscious kisser of a warmth that wakens canker as it wakens bloom.

 

Now fear infects the wind, and every breath that neighbour breathes on neighbour in the street brings death so close you smell it on the stairs. Rats multiply, as God would have them do. And fear infects like mould; like fungus, spreads -folk catch it from the chopped-off ears and thumbs, the burning heretics and eyeless heads that slow-revolve the poles on London Bridge.

 

The child of casual violence grows inured, an audience too used to real blood; they've watched a preacher butchered, still awake, and handed his beating heart like it was love. And now the sanctioned butchery of State breeds sadists who delight to man the rack, reduce men from divine belief and brain to begging, and the rubble of their spines.

 

From all this, I am dead. Reduced to ink that magicks up my spirit from the page: a voice who knows what mortals cannot think of; a ghost, whose words ring deeper from the grave.

 

Corpse-dead. A gory stab-hole for an eye; and that's what they must think. No, must believe, those thug-head pursers bent on gagging speech, if I'm to slip their noose and stay alive. Now I'm as dead as any to the world, the foulest rain of blackened corpses on the body that is entered in my name: the plague pit where Kit Marlowe now belongs. For who could afford for that infected earth to be dug up to check identities? And so, I leave my former name behind. Gone on the Deptford tide, the whole world blind.

 

Friend, I'm no one. If I write to you, in fading light that distances the threat, it's as a breeze that strokes the Channel's waves, the spray that blesses some small vessel's deck.

THE MARLOWE PAPERS. Copyright © 2012 by Ros Barber. All rights reserved. . For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.