Arden of Faversham

This 'lamentable and true tragedy', as it is announced on its title

page, dramatises a domestic murder of the sort that nowadays

scandalises and thrills the readers of tabloid newspapers. Although the

title advertises 'the great malice and dissimulation of a wicked woman'

and her 'unsatiable desire of filthie lust', the unknown playwright

with great dramatic skill and psychological insight manages to balance

the motivations of all the main characters. Thomas Arden, one of the

rapacious landlords so reviled in mid-Elizabethan social drama, was

murdered at his own house in Faversham, Kent, in 1551. His murderers,

it turned out, had been hired by his wife Alice, thrall to Mosby, who

hoped to rise socially by marrying a rich widow. As the introduction to

this edition shows, sexual and material covetousness is the central

theme running through the play, which is commonly rated 'unquestionably

the best of all Elizabethan domestic tragedies'.