Christopher Marlowe was born in February, 1564, to a Canterbury shoemaker. He attended Cambridge University, took bachelor's and master's degrees, studied widely and deeply, and may have begun his studies with the intention of becoming an Anglican priest. The actual course of his life was to be quite different. Evidence suggests that, while still in school, Marlowe became a spy for the British government, and on graduation he immediately began a career in the theater. He wrote his first great play, Tamburlaine, in 1587, and continued producing plays over the next six years.

In 1593, Marlowe's friend and fellow dramatist Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy, was arrested and executed for treason. Some heretical, freethinking papers were found in Kyd's quarters, and Kyd implicated Marlowe in their production. Conservatives accused Marlowe of atheism, but the government interceded to protect him from prosecution, perhaps because Marlowe was still serving as a spy. Later that year, Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl. Puritans slandered the dead playwright, calling him an impious and immoral man and pointing to the manner of his death as proof. However, given the tender sincerity of Marlowe's lyric poetry and the moral fervor of such works as The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, one can hardly accept such charges against him. It is possible that Marlowe was murdered by the government because of embarrassment over the Kyd episode. At his death, Marlowe was only twenty-nine years old.