John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont

Abstract

John Fletcher was born at Rye, in Sussex, the son of a minister who was later to become Bishop of London. He was probably educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. By 1605 he had established himself as a playwright in London; he died of the plague in 1625. Francis Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, the son of an eminent judge. He attended Broadgates Hall (later Pembroke College), Oxford, but left in his second year to study law at the Inner Temple. He became a poet and playwright, and soon began to collaborate with Fletcher, with whom he lived for many years in a house close to the Globe Theatre. Beaumont married in about 1613, and retired to Kent. From 1606 to 1613 Beaumont and Fletcher collaborated in about fifteen plays, the most famous of which is The Maid’s Tragedy, which was written in 1610.