 john day (1574 â 1638?) was an english dramatist of the elizabethan and jacobean periods. ==life== he was born at cawston, norfolk, and educated at ely. he became a sizar of caius college, cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book. he became one of philip henslowe's playwrights, collaborating with henry chettle, william haughton, thomas dekker, richard hathwaye and wentworth smith. there are 22 plays to which he is linked. however his almost incessant activity does not seem to have paid, to judge by the small loans, of five shillings and even two shillings, that he obtained from henslowe. little is known of his life beyond these small details, and disparaging references by ben jonson in 1618/19, describing him, (with dekker and edward sharpham) as a ârogueâ and (with thomas middleton and gervase markham) as a âbase fellowâ. it may be indicative of his abilities that of all the writers who did a substantial amount of work for hensloweâs companies day is one of only two not mentioned and praised by francis meres in his lists of the âthe bestâ writers in 1598. in peregrinatio scholastica, or learning's pilgrimage, a collection of 22 morall tractes written towards the end of his life, but not published until 1881, he laments that ânotwithstanding . . . industry . . . he was forct to take a napp at beggars busheâ, and elsewhere he refers to âbeing becalmde in a fogg of necessityâ having been passed over by âcreditâ and âopinionâ. it seems likely that he was the âjohn daye, yeomanâ who killed fellow dramatist henry porter in southwark 1599. if so it does not seem have to interrupted his career; he continued to collaborate with writers such as henry chettle, who had written with porter. ==works== the first play in which day appears as part-author is the conquest of brute, with the finding of the bath (1598), which, with most of his early work, is lost. day's earliest extant work, written in collaboration with chettle, is the blind beggar of bethnal green (acted 1600, printed 1659), a drama dealing with the early years of the reign of henry vi. it bore the sub-title of the merry humor of tom strowd, the norfolk yeoman, and was so popular that second and third parts, by day and haughton, were produced in the next year. the isle of gulls (printed 1606), a prose comedy founded upon sir philip sidney's arcadia, contains in its light dialogue much satire to which the key is now lost, but algernon charles swinburne notes in manasses's burlesque of a puritan sermon is a curious anticipation of the eloquence of mr. chadband in bleak house. in 
1574_births 1640s_deaths 16th-century_English_people 16th-century_English_writers 16th-century_dramatists_and_playwrights 17th-century_English_people 17th-century_English_writers 17th-century_dramatists_and_playwrights Alumni_of_Gonville_and_Caius_College,_Cambridge English_Renaissance_dramatists People_from_Broadland_(district) People_of_the_Stuart_period People_of_the_Tudor_period