Thomas Middleton

Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt Midleton) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet.

In the early 17th century, Middleton made a living writing topical pamphlets, including one – Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets – that was reprinted several times and became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.

Having passed the time during the plague composing prose pamphlets (including a continuation of Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penniless), he returned to drama with great energy, producing almost a score of plays for several companies and in several genres, notably city comedy and revenge tragedy.

He continued to collaborate with Dekker: the two produced The Roaring Girl, a biography of the contemporary thief Mary Frith.

In the 1610s, Middleton began a fruitful collaboration with the actor William Rowley, producing Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel.

He also became increasingly involved with civic pageants, and in 1620 became officially appointed as chronologist to the City of London, a post he held until his death in 1627, when it passed to Jonson.

Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after nine performances, having received a complaint from the Spanish Ambassador.

Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in 1627, and was buried on 4 July in St Mary's churchyard.

[7] However, since the statistical studies by David Lake[8] and MacDonald P. Jackson,[9] Middleton's authorship has not been seriously contested, and no further scholar has defended the Tourneur attribution.

His early work was informed by the flourishing of satire in the late Elizabethan period,[13] while his maturity was influenced by the ascendancy of Fletcherian tragicomedy.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, produced by the Lady Elizabeth's Men, skilfully combines London life with an expansive view of the power of love to effect reconciliation.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside offers a panoramic view of a London populated entirely by sinners, in which no social rank goes unsatirised.