SOURCE: Jowett, John. “Notes on Henry Chettle (Concluded).” Review of English Studies 45, no. 180 (November 1994): 517-22.

In the following essay, Jowett discusses Chettle's contribution to the play Sir Thomas More, his involvement in Romeo and Juliet, the plays he wrote in collaboration with others, his work on The Tragedy of Hoffman, his debts, and his death.

Chettle and Sir Thomas More

Chettle has confidently been identified as one of the revisers of the manuscript play Sir Thomas More. Tannenbaum's identification of the handwriting of so-called Hand A as that of Chettle has found general assent.¹ Here we find Chettle and, amongst others, Shakespeare collaborating on the same project. The date of the original text (which exists as a fair copy in Munday's hand), the date of the revisions, and the circumstances of the revisions have all been widely debated. Jenkins reviews discussion up to the point of writing in...