Marlowe Killed in Deptford

May 30, 1593

The playwright Christopher Marlowe, author of Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine, was stabbed to death in a Deptford tavern during a dispute over the bill, supposedly. He was twenty-nine. The details remained murky, and many suspected government agents had silenced a troublesome atheist and probable spy. The circumstances, in a house with intelligence connections, have spawned four centuries of conspiracy theories about state secrets.