Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit

During the course of the story characters introduce song lyrics, fables, and some sharp and resentful criticisms of actors and playwrights.

It appears to have been written with the idea that the contemporary reader would try to figure out which actual persons are being represented and satirised by the characters in the story.

[1][2] The pamphlet is most famous for a passage which appears to allude to William Shakespeare, who was then starting out on his career as an actor and playwright.

Entred for his copie under Mr Watkin’s hand, uppon the perill of Henrye Chettle, a booke intituled Greene’s Groatsworth of wyt, bought with a million of Repentance .

Chettle, who had entered into partnership with Danter and William Hoskins in 1591, and who continued to work for Danter for several years after the partnership dissolved, claimed in a prefatory epistle to Kind-Heart's Dream (1592) that, because Greene's handwriting was illegible, he (Chettle) had copied out Greene's manuscript so that the work could be licensed.

Two years later Roberto is a successful playwright and Lucanio is penniless, having spent all the money he inherited on Lamilia, who has now discarded him.

The narrator then states that the life of Roberto is similar to his own, and exhorts his readers to follow a more honourable path, summed up in ten precepts.

He then addresses three unnamed "Gentlemen his Quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making Plaies", telling them to reform their ways.

All should beware of actors and newcomers, especially "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey."

The comment about an "upstart crow beautified with our feathers" is generally accepted as a reference to Shakespeare, who is criticised as an actor who has the temerity to write plays (absolute Iohannes factotum), and is possibly taken to task for plagiarism or excessive pride.

[21] The "famous gracer of Tragedians" is generally taken to refer to Christopher Marlowe, educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, who was accused of atheism.

The third writer is usually identified as George Peele, educated at Christ Church, Oxford, who, like Greene, was notorious for his chaotic lifestyle.

[27] Some scholars hypothesize that all or part of Groats-Worth was written shortly after Greene's death by one of his fellow writers.

He denied writing the work, stating that he had only transcribed it from Greene's original manuscript into his own hand before publication.

[28] Chettle wrote, About three months since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry booksellers' hands, among other his Groatsworth of Wit, in which a letter written to divers play-makers is offensively by one or two of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they willfully forge in their conceits a living author [...] With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I never be.

Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.

He denied it in the 1592 edition of his book Pierce Penniless, calling the work a "scald, trivial lying pamphlet".