SOURCE: Jowett, John. “Johannes Factotum: Henry Chettle and Greene's Groatsworth of Wit.” Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 87, no. 4 (December 1993): 453-86.

In the following essay, Jowett examines the evidence for the claim that Chettle authored Greene's Groatsworth of Wit before establishing a context for his authorship and confronting those critics who reject the idea that he forged the work.

Greene's Groatsworth of Wit and The Repentance of Robert Greene, both published shortly after Robert Greene's death in 1592, are two of the most important autobiographical and literary records of the period.¹ The Groatsworth's letter to the playwrights, with its repudiation of the players, its comments on the dramatists, and its open hostility towards Marlowe and Shakespeare, make it a crucial and justifiably well-known document in literary and theatrical history. The Repentance is significant not only as a source of information on Greene's life, but also in its...