John Day (dramatist)

[1] He became one of Philip Henslowe's playwrights, collaborating with Henry Chettle, William Haughton, Thomas Dekker, Richard Hathwaye and Wentworth Smith.

[2] Little is known of his life beyond these small details, and disparaging references by Ben Jonson in 1618/19, describing him, (with Dekker and Edward Sharpham) as a "rogue" and (with Thomas Middleton and Gervase Markham) as a "base fellow".

In Peregrinatio Scholastica, or Learning's Pilgrimage, a collection of 22 morall Tractes written towards the end of his life, but not published until 1881, he laments that "notwithstanding .

Day's earliest extant work, written in collaboration with Chettle, is The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (acted 1600, printed 1659), a drama dealing with the early years of the reign of Henry VI.

It bore the sub-title of The Merry Humor of Tom Strowd, the Norfolk Yeoman, and was so popular that second and third parts, by Day and Haughton, were produced in the next year.

The Isle of Gulls (printed 1606), a prose comedy founded upon Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, contains in its light dialogue much satire to which the key is now lost, but Algernon Charles Swinburne notes in Manasses's burlesque of a Puritan sermon is a curious anticipation of the eloquence of Mr. Chadband in Bleak House.

The beauty and ingenuity of The Parliament of Bees were noted and warmly extolled by Charles Lamb; and Day's work has since found many admirers.

The Parliament of Bees and Humour out of Breath were printed in Nero and other Plays (Mermaid Series, 1888), with an introduction by Arthur Symons.