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Title: The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe by Charles Nicholl ISBN: 0-226-58024-5 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: August, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.20 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Poetry, Espionage and Murder
Comment: The death (possible murder) of Christopher Marlowe is one of the most fascinating of all true crimes. Set in Elizabethan London with a cast of characters that include William Shakespeare, "The Reckoning" provides a intriguing explantion for the events of that strange day when after hours of drink and talk, Kit Marlowe ended up dead, stabbed through the eye. The official story: a quarrel over the bill or reckoning. But mix in politics, espionage (Marlowe was a spy), homosexuality and literary genuis and the official story gets shaken to its tidy core. This is a very fine work, thoughtful, well-researched and crisp, capturing the time and place effectively and believably, and providing a rational context for the known events. Apart from the loss of Marlowe's death at the height of his genius, the story provides a compelling view of the murkier side of life among the young bloods of the aging Elizabeth's world. Not only a class A unsolved mystery, "The Reckoning" is also important resource for serious readers of late 16th c. poetry and drama. NB: Marlowe is the only playwrite Shakespeare quoted in one of his own works -- a sign of respectful rivalry.
Rating: 5
Summary: nice little historical who dun it! utterly brilliant work
Comment: I love history and all the details. I also love riddles and mysteries. So, when someone combines both into a tale, as Charles Nicholl did, it's bound to please me. This book is the Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography and the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Awards for non-fiction thriller - both well earned!!
Marlowe was a very controversial poet and playwright. In 1593, he was stabbed to death in a lodging house in Deptford. To say the least, the manner and circumstances of death was up to question. There was a violent quarrel concerning Marlowe's bill and the official finding has been called dubious at best.
Nicholl brings to life this historical riddle with style and ingenuity weaving facts, supposition and fiction into one wonderful mix. He presents a very complex study of Marlowe's death, but it is also a marvellous study of the seedier side of Elizabethan society.
Nicholl walks the masterful tightrope between historical study on Marlowe's murder, a well-written 'who dun it' and portrays with rich detail the period that leaves one wondering if he is not reincarnated!!
So buy it for the history, writers need to read it if they write about the period for it is also a scholarly work, but most of all sit back and enjoy a real British Who do it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Well-researched but sometimes tedious
Comment: For assiduous research into Marlowe's life and times, THE RECKONING deserves five stars. For pure entertainment value, I would give it only three. So I've split the difference.
It's impossible to deny the hard work and exhaustive research that went into this densely argued book. Nicholl discovered previously unknown tidbits of fact about Marlowe and other Elizabethan figures (and he is not shy about announcing his role in these discoveries). Unfortunately, the sheer number of digressions into the minutiae of Elizabethan spycraft began to wear on me after a while. At one point Nicholl himself admits that a certain story he is recounting is "wearyingly familiar," as indeed it is - we've read it all before, again and again, in the lives of various minor poets and sometime spies reconstructed throughout the book. Some of these folks are directly connected with Marlowe, some have only the most tangential relationship, and others are dragged in just for atmosphere. An examination of the events in Deptford that left Marlowe dead occupies the first and last sections of THE RECKONING, but the long middle portion is devoted to establishing the background of the killing - a background that seemingly incorporates every single fact Nicholl was able to dig up during months or years of poring through archival documents. It can be "wearying" indeed, not to mention mind-numbing. Still, there is important information here for those interested in the period. Just don't expect a quick or easy read.
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Title: A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess ISBN: 0786711523 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Complete Plays by Christopher Marlowe, J. B. Steane ISBN: 0140430377 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: December, 1969 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Entered From The Sun: The Murder Of Marlowe by George Garrett ISBN: 0156287951 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 16 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Poems by Mark Thornton Burnett, Christopher Marlowe ISBN: 0460879952 Publisher: Everymans Library Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John F. Michell ISBN: 0500281130 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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