Michael Neillis Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland. He is the author of Issues of Death(1997) and Putting History to the Question (2000). He has edited Anthony and Cleopatra (1994) and Othello (2006) for the Oxford Shakespeare, Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling (2006) for New Mermaids, Massinger's The Renegado (2010) for Arden Early Modern Drama, and Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (2013) for Norton Critical editions. He is currently preparing Webster's The Duchess of Malfi for Norton, and co-editing The Oxford Handbook to Shakespearean Tragedy (with David Schalkwyk).

George Chapman (1560-1634) was an English poet and dramatist, also noted for his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey (which inspired Keats's sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'). Chapman, who is thought to have served as a soldier in his youth, began to write plays for the Admiral's Men in the 1590s; his earlier works include the comedy An Humorous Day's Mirth (1597), which influenced Jonson's Every Man in His Humour (1598). Most of Chapman's surviving plays date from the first decade of the 17th century, the tragedy Bussy D'Ambois (1604) and its sequel The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1610) being usually considered his best work. In 1605, in collaboration with Ben Jonson and John Marston, Chapman wrote Eastward Ho!, a play that King James I found so offensive to his fellow Scots that he had Chapman and Marston imprisoned for their part in it. Nonetheless, it has proved to be Chapman's most frequently revived work.

John Marston (c. 1575-1634) was an English playwright who wrote thirteen plays between 1599 and 1609, his two finest being the tragicomedy The Malcontent (1604) and the comedy The Dutch Courtesan (1605). He is noted for his violent imagery and his preoccupation with mankind's failure to uphold Christian virtues. Other plays include the tragedies Antonio's Revenge and Antonio and Mellida (both 1599) and the comedy What You Will (1601). At the turn of the century Marston became involved in the so-called war of the theatres, a prolonged feud with his rival Ben Jonson. Jonson repeatedly satirized him in such plays as Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) and The Poetaster (1601), while Marston replied in Satiromastix (with Thomas Dekker; 1601). Their squabble ended in time for the two to collaborate with George Chapman on the ill-fated Eastward Ho! (1605), which resulted in all three authors being briefly imprisoned. Marston was later imprisoned for offending James I with his tragedy The Insatiate Countess (1610). After his release he took holy orders and wrote no more plays.