But nobody knows.
And if it gets out, you're dead.
On May 30, 1593, a celebrated young playwright was killed in a tavern brawl in London. That, at least, was the official version. Now Christopher Marlowe reveals the truth: that his "death" was an elaborate ruse to avoid a conviction of heresy; that he was spirited across the English Channel to live on in lonely exile; that he continued to write plays and poetry, hiding behind the name of a colorless man from Stratford¿one William Shakespeare.
With the grip of a thriller and the emotional force of a sonnet, this remarkable novel in verse gives voice to a man who was brilliant, passionate, and mercurial. A cobbler's son who counted nobles among his friends, a spy in the Queen's service, a fickle lover and a declared religious skeptic, Christopher Marlowe always courted trouble. In this memoir, love letter, confession, and settling of accounts, Ros Barber brings Christopher Marlowe and his era to vivid life in The Marlowe Papers.

Ros Barber is a novelist, academic, and poet. Her critically-acclaimed debut novel The Marlowe Papers was winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, joint winner of the Author's Club Best First Novel Award and long-listed for the Women's Fiction Prize. Her critically-acclaimed second novel Devotion was shortlisted for the Encore Award. She is a senior lecturer in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.