#PopsugarReadingChallenge Book 17: The Marlowe Papers

Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a writer.
The Marlowe Papers, by Ros Barber.

This is a novel-in-verse that brings to life my favorite literary conspiracy theory: that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death and wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare.

The faked death part is surprisingly plausible: Marlowe was facing trial for heresy and treason, which would almost certainly have ended in being tortured to death. Marlowe had worked as a spy, and had powerful friends with the money and connections to smuggle him abroad. And the official version of Marlowe's death is so implausible that no fiction writer would attempt it: shortly before he would have had to turn himself in, he was at a dinner attended only by his friends, when he reportedly started a drunken fight that resulted in him being stabbed in the face. Of course, you don't have to believe that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare, or that his death was faked, in order to enjoy a well-written story.

The tale is told from Marlowe's point of view in sonnets and blank verse, many addressed to the male lover he had to leave behind. We follow Kit from his early life as a cobbler's son, his time abroad as an agent, his rise to literary prominence as "the Muse's Darling," and his fall from grace and escape, trying to rebuild his life in exile. Barber provides copious end notes detailing the established facts and various theories about Marlowe's life. The end notes also help keep the characters straight, as there were a ridiculous number of men named Thomas in Marlowe's life.

There's a lot in Shakespeare's plays and poetry that can be mined for parallels with Marlowe's life. For instance, Marlowe and a friend got dragged into a swordfight that resembled Romeo's fight with Tybalt (and Romeo's speech about exile being worse than death hits differently when attributed to an exiled Marlowe). And of course Shakespeare's works are filled with faked deaths, exiles and disguises, and even a character named Posthumous. The Marlowe Papers has an unlikely but funny scene where the "dead" Marlowe attends one of his own plays disguised as a woman.

The great authors and performers of Elizabethan London come to life on the page - with one exception. William Shakespeare is mentioned as a dull creature who is hired to publish the "dead" Marlowe's works as his own. This is arranged through third parties, so Marlowe never sees him, and neither does the reader. To the rest of the world, Shakespeare is the star and Marlowe is invisible; only within the pages of the book is it the other way around.

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