Henry Chettle
Henry Chettle, likely born in 1565, was an influential figure in the Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre as a playwright, editor, and printer. He began his career as an apprentice to printer Thomas East and became a partner in a printing business, though his own contributions during this time are not well-documented. Chettle's first notable work was editing Robert Greene's posthumous "A Groat's-Worth of Wit" in 1592, despite his claims of not having edited it. His involvement in the dramatic arts expanded with his writing, collaborating with prominent figures like Thomas Dekker and Ben Jonson, and producing works such as "The Tragedy of Hoffman" and various adaptations of popular ballads. Additionally, he authored prose works, including "Pierce Plainness: Seaven Yeares Prentiship," and composed an elegy for Queen Elizabeth titled "Englande's Mourning Garment." Chettle faced legal challenges and financial difficulties throughout his life, and his exact date of death is uncertain, though he was likely deceased by 1607. His legacy reflects a rich, albeit complex, contribution to the literary landscape of his time.
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Henry Chettle
Playwright
- Born: c. 1565
- Birthplace: Probably London, England
- Died: c. 1607
Biography
Henry Chettle was probably born in 1565, the son of London dyer Robert Chettle. In 1577 he was apprenticed to the printer Thomas East, and he acquired the Freedom of the Stationer’s company in 1584. He entered into partnership in a printing business with William Hoskins and John Danter, but most of the works issued by the firm do not include his name, perhaps implying that his association was peripheral. There is little evidence of his working as a playwright or pamphleteer until after the business failed, but if three works, signed H.C. and published in 1578 and 1579 were his, it seems probable that he was also writing throughout the 1580’s.
Chettle’s first acknowledged appearance in print was as editor of Robert Greene’s posthumous A Groat’s-Worth of Wit in 1592, which Chettle strenuously denied having edited in the autobiographical pamphlet Kind-Hart’s Dreame, although many others, including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, were convinced that he had. “Reversed plagiarism”—passing one’s own work off as that of a more prestigious writer—was not uncommon at the time. Kind-Hart’s Dreame is probably less reliable in offering an insight into Chettle’s character and career than the diary of the stage-manager Philip Henslowe, who obviously knew him very well, and lent him more money than any of the other writers he had to help out, buying him out of the Marshalsea Prison twice in 1599. Chettle was also tried in the Star Chamber in 1601 on a charge of attempting to libel an alderman, but that was by no means unusual for an Elizabethan playwright and pamphleteer.
The exact extent of Chettle’s contributions to the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre is difficult to determine, although he appears to have been prolific. Although he signed an agreement to write exclusively for the Admiral’s Company in 1603, he was certainly writing simultaneously for Worcester’s Company as well. His thirteen known solo works include The Tragedy of Hoffman, about a Danish pirate, but he was much more prolific in collaboration with such writers as Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, John Day and John Webster. Notable surviving works in which he had a hand include several extrapolations of popular ballads, including versions of Patient Grissill (with Dekker and William Haughton) and The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (with Day), in which the beggar turns out to be Simon de Montfort in disguise.
In addition to Kind-Hart’s Dreame, Chettle’s prose works include the picaresque Pierce Plainness: Seaven Yeares Prentiship, a significant proto-novel published a year after Thomas Nash’s Jack Wilton. His most significant surviving poem is Englande’s Mourning Garment an elegy commemorating Queen Elizabeth written immediately after her death in 1603. Chettle must have died before 1607, because he was included then in a list of famous playwrights who were allegedly continuing their trade in the Elysian fields, but there is no certain trace of him after Henslowe’s diary concludes in 1603.