author
Thomas Kyd
1558–1594
Best known for The Spanish Tragedy, this pioneering Elizabethan dramatist helped shape the revenge tragedy that later echoed through works like Hamlet. Though much of his life remains shadowy, his influence on English drama is unmistakable.
2 Audiobooks
The Spanish Tragedie
by Thomas Kyd
The Spanish Tragedy
by Thomas Kyd
About the author
Born in London and baptized on November 6, 1558, Thomas Kyd was the son of a scrivener, or professional copyist. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, where he received a strong humanist training, but many details of his adult life are uncertain.
Kyd is remembered above all for The Spanish Tragedy, a hugely popular play that became a landmark of Elizabethan theater. Its ghosts, violence, and thirst for justice helped establish the English revenge tragedy, and later writers, including Shakespeare, worked in a dramatic world that Kyd had helped define.
His final years were troubled. He was arrested in 1593, and after his release he struggled under suspicion and hardship. Kyd was buried on August 15, 1594, but his reputation endured, and he is now widely seen as one of the key early voices of English Renaissance drama.