The Travels of the Three English Brothers is an early Jacobean era stage play, an adventure drama written in 1607 by John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins.
The play was based on an account of the Shirleys' travels by Anthony Nixon, published in pamphlet form and titled The Three English Brothers.
The triple authorship of The Travels is not in doubt; the three dramatists are credited by name on the title page, and all three signed the prefatory Epistle to the Shirleys.
The Travels of the Three English Brothers belongs to a genre of traditional, popular, and somewhat naive drama of adventure and romance that was typified by the plays of Thomas Heywood and his many compatriots.
More sophisticated writers of the early Jacobean period looked down on this popular drama; Beaumont was mocking The Travels when he referred to it in Knight of the Burning Pestle, IV, i, 33-5.
[11] The English display their valor and resourcefulness when assaulted by violence and treachery; when an unarmed Sir Thomas Shirley is attacked by four Turks, he defends himself with rocks.
The splendid English move the Persian "Sophy" (the play's version of the Shah) to verbal raptures – and inspire him to grant Christians tolerance in his dominions.