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Brian Vickers, Shakespeare’s Tutor: The Influence of Thomas Kyd. By Darren Freebury-Jones, Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 75, Issue 4, Winter 2024, Pages 347–350, https://doi.org/10.1093/sq/quae043
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Extract
As the reviewer, I stand in an unusual relationship to this book, which I had better explain. After several years’ research, in April 2008 I published a short essay in the TLS called “Thomas Kyd, Secret Sharer,” which identified Kyd as the sole author of three anonymously published plays, King Leir, Arden of Faversham, and Fair Em. I also argued that Kyd had been co-author (with Nashe), of Henslowe’s Harey the vj, performed by Strange’s Men at the Rose Theatre on March 3, 1592, and that Shakespeare subsequently converted the play into 1 Henry VI by adding three scenes (2.4, 4.2, and 4.5). On Edward III, by contrast, I claimed that Kyd and Shakespeare had worked together from the outset, with Shakespeare writing the Countess of Salisbury episode (1.2–2.2) and the scene on the eve of the battle of Crécy (4.4). Public response to these attributions was minor, apart from a few scholars convinced that Shakespeare co-authored Arden. Unable to free myself from other commitments, I postponed Kyd for a more favorable time.
