Robert Greene

Born in Norwich and educated at Cambridge, Robert Greene became a prolific writer in late 16th-century London. He worked across several forms, including prose romances, pamphlets, and plays, and is often described as one of England's first professional authors.

Greene was widely read in his own day, especially for his energetic storytelling and dramatic flair. Modern readers often meet him through works such as Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, as well as through Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, the 1592 pamphlet traditionally linked to the famous attack on an "upstart crow," long associated with William Shakespeare.

Though his life was short, his career offers a vivid glimpse of the fast-moving literary world of Elizabethan London. His writing helped shape popular prose fiction and romantic comedy at a moment when English theatre and print culture were rapidly growing.