Thomas Middleton

Thomas Middleton was the son of a London master bricklayer. He was educated first at Queen's College, Oxford, and was then admitted at Gray's Inn in 1593. He published three volumes of verse by 1600, and it is believed that he had already begun to write for the stage at that time. Certainly he was a working playwright by 1602, when he is mentioned in Henslowes Diary, and his earliest surviving independant play, Blurt, Master Constable (1602) was printed.
Middleton was an industrious, prolific writer, writing for both Boys of St Paul's and the Admirals's Men. His citizen comedies, written for boy's companies

between 1602 and 1607, include A Mad World, My Masters (1605), A Trick to Catch the Old One (1605) and Michaelmas Term (1606). He collaborated with Dekker on the comedies The Honest Whore (1604), The Family of Love (1603-7) and The Roaring Girl (1610). For the adult companies, he also wrote his masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1611). These comedies expose bourgeois vice in contemporary London in a satiric tone.
From 1613 on, Middleton wrote many City of London pageants for the Lord Mayor, and served as City Chronologer from 1620 until his death in 1627. Yet, he continued to write plays as well; three collaborations with Rowley, A Fair Quarrel (pub 1617), The World Tossed at Tennis (pub 1620) and The Changeling (1622).
Middleton's patriotic drama, A Game at Chess (1624) was unprecedently successful, but was closed after nine performances due to its inflammatory anti-Spanish content and the Spanish Ambassador's outrage. The writer and the actors were reprimanded and fined. One of Middletons last plays, Women Beware Women (1625) was a tragedy where the final "slaughter" scene verged on comedy, a matter which has persuaded some critics that Middletone was also the author of The Revenger's Tragedy (1607). Middleton died of natural causes at Newington Butts and was buried there on July 4, 1627

Sole Authorship

Collaboration

Questionable Ownership

With Thomas Dekker:

With William Rowley:

With John Webster:

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)