The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

Discusses how Marlowe's Doctor Faustus has reached us in two strikingly different versions, the relation between which is one of the outstanding critical problems of Elizabethan drama. By printing the text of 1604 and 1616, on opposite pages, W.W. Greg shows how they compare in detail, and in 150 pages of introduction endeavors to unravel their history. He argues that the earlier version was reconstructed from memory to serve as a prompt book for a provincial company, and that the later was put together for publication by an editor, who had the use of an imperfect and unrevised draft. --From publisher description.