Five Plays (Penguin Classics)
Thomas Middleton, one of the greatest of Jacobean dramatists,  was born in 1580, the son of a well-to-do London bricklayer. He went to Oxford but seems not to have gained a degree. Thereafter he pursued the precarious career of a professional writerin London. In a quarter of a century he wrote, either on his own or in collaboration, nearly fifty plays and other theatrical pieces. His greatest contemporary success was A Game at Chess, which was suppressed by the government. He died in 1627.