Tamburlaine the Great (in two parts) was produced around 1587 (with the sequel soon after), helping establish Marlowe’s distinctive high style and influential use of blank verse on the public stage.
After Marlowe’s M.A. degree was reportedly delayed amid suspicions about his activities, the Privy Council sent a letter to Cambridge (Corpus Christi College) supporting him and indicating he had served the queen in unspecified matters—an early documentary anchor for his later “court/secret-service” associations.
Both parts of Tamburlaine were published together in 1590 (without naming an author), rapidly circulating Marlowe’s breakthrough theatrical style beyond performance and into print.
The two parts of Tamburlaine the Great were entered in the Stationers’ Register in August 1590, a key step in its print publication history and the only Marlowe play known to be published in his lifetime.
In an episode that later fed suspicions about Marlowe’s entanglement with intelligence networks, he was arrested at Vlissingen/Flushing (an English garrison town) in early 1592 after being accused of “coining” (counterfeiting) and other suspicions; Richard Baines figured prominently in the accusations.
Philip Henslowe’s diary records a performance of The Jew of Malta at the Rose Theatre in March 1592, with Edward Alleyn famously associated with the lead role—evidence of the play’s early popularity in the repertory.
A first verifiable performance of The Massacre at Paris occurred in February 1593 (per Henslowe-related evidence), placing Marlowe’s most politically volatile surviving play at the center of London’s theatrical season shortly before the crisis of spring 1593.
Amid escalating accusations, a Privy Council warrant was issued on 18 May 1593; Marlowe appeared on 20 May and was ordered to give daily attendance until licensed otherwise—an unusually tight constraint that underscores his proximity to high-level scrutiny and court-linked patronage.
Marlowe was killed on 30 May 1593 at Deptford while in the company of Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres, and Robert Poley at Eleanor Bull’s house. The coroner’s inquest (later discovered in 1925) recorded a fatal stabbing during a quarrel over the reckoning, with a verdict of self-defense for Frizer.
In late May/early June 1593, Richard Baines produced a memorandum (the “Baines note”) alleging Marlowe voiced extreme, subversive religious opinions; the document became central to Marlowe’s posthumous reputation and debates over surveillance, informants, and factional politics.
Edward II was entered in the Stationers’ Register in July 1593, weeks after Marlowe’s death, marking the transition of his most politically searching history play into the posthumous print marketplace.
The first edition of Dido, Queen of Carthage appeared in 1594, with its title page attributing it to Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe and noting performance by the Children of the Chapel—an important witness to Marlowe’s early dramatic output and its court-adjacent boy-company context.
The earliest extant edition of Edward II was published in 1594, helping secure the play’s influence and ensuring a durable textual afterlife despite Marlowe’s death the year before.
Marlowe’s narrative poem Hero and Leander was first published in 1598 (with editions both with and without George Chapman’s continuation), becoming a key monument of his non-dramatic verse and a major vehicle of his posthumous literary reputation.
Christopher Marlowe's Works and Court Connections (1587–1593)
