Product Description

Set in Elizabethan England, Burgess's first novel for four years centres on the life of Christopher Marlowe, who was killed in suspicious circumstances in a tavern brawl in Deptford 400 years ago. It portrays a theatre genius riven by sexual and political conflicts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44762 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Elizabethan Life and Death
This is a fascinating book, probably the best historical(-ish!) novel I've read. It's full of the feel of the period, thanks to the style and imagination with which Burgess conjures up all manner of settings and situations from the squalid to the opulent. This is a fascinating story of Marlowe's rise and demise, taking in espionage, homosexuality, poetry and finally murder. Two particular episodes stick in my mind - a gruesome execution scene which really conveys the horror of drawing and quartering; and an hilarious sex scene written in pidgin Latin. Buy this book - it's a real gem.

Burgess takes one on a trip back in time.
Once one becomes accustomed to the language, which whether reading james elroy or shakespeare always takes getting used to, Anthony Burgess takes one spiraling down into the chaotic, paranoid, hopeless elizabethan world where once denounced one was always guilty, always tortured, always drawn and quartered. I felt for the first time what it must be like to live within a framework of absolute fear, of saying, of doing, of thinking,and yet we are still able to enjoy the plays of Marlowe today. It is astounding that a man could create under those circumstances and that what he created has remained for us to enjoy these last 400 or so years. An amazing book.

One of the great gay novels... no, really
I don't know anything about Anthony Burgess's sex life, but A Dead Man in Deptford (and his masterpiece, Earthly Powers) are two of the most thorough explorations of homosexuality and its place in the culture. Here he recreates Marlowe as a horny Elizabethan jack-the-lad, taking advantage of his fellow theatricals, carrying on with the aristocracy, and debating the nature of sex at every turn. The sex scenes themselves are great, and very funny (at one point the squeamish narrator lapses into latin, which is great for those of us with an O Level). Read it and be amazed.