SOURCE: Jowett, John. “Notes on Henry Chettle.” Review of English Studies 45, no. 179 (August 1994): 384-88.

In the following essay, Jowett collates and consolidates critical work done on Chettle after 1934 to present a sketch of the man and his work, discussing his early writings, his relationship with John Danter, his authorship of Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, and his attack on bawdy ballads.

It is now sixty years since Harold Jenkins published his Life and Work of Henry Chettle (1934), which remains the standard biography and an indispensable tool for students of Chettle. These notes are designed to collate, consolidate, and develop such subsequent work as revises our knowledge and understanding of the writer. If he emerges as a more disreputable figure, he is also more diverse and vital, and an important mediator between drama and print.

1. Early Writings

Chettle, as Jenkins notes, was apprenticed to Thomas East in 1577. It is significant...