John Webster

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John Webster (~1578 - ~1634) was an Elizabethan dramatist, a contemporary of William Shakespeare.

Webster's life is obscure, but he was born in 1578 or 1579 as the son of a cartmaker in Smithfield, London. His interest in theatre may have been sparked when his father was hired to make wagons for city pageants.

Webster probably studied at the Merchant Taylor's School, before going on to the law schools at the Middle Temple. However, by 1602 he was working with teams of playwrights on history plays, most of which were never printed. He also worked with Thomas Dekker on two city comedies, Westward Ho! and Northward Ho!.

However, Webster is best known for his brooding tragedies. The White Devil was a disaster when staged at the Red Bull theatre in 1612, being too unusual and intellectual for its audience. The Duchess of Malfi, performed by the King's Men in 1613 was more successful.

Webster wrote one more play on his own: The Devil's Lawcase (1621), a tragicomedy. His later plays were collaborative city comedies: Anything for a Quiet Life (1621), co-written with Thomas Middleton, and A Cure for a Cuckold (1624), co-written with William Rowley.

Webster's major plays, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, are macabre, disturbing works that seem to pre-empt the Gothic literature of the eighteenth century. Intricate, complex subtle and learned, they are difficult but rewarding, and are still frequently staged today.