Rating: 
Summary: NON-ACADEMIC'S TAKE ON MARLOWE
Review: This book is a treat. Very reasonably priced, and it's all there. The plays sweep you along (I always envision darkening Puccini-like chords in the background) images and crackling dialogue abounds. My problem is: 1) I have never seen the plays produced. This is *such* a handicap. I actually yawned through Shakepeare's "Tempest" until I saw a fine production. Now it is hands-down my favorite play and 2)I have to get in the swing of reading Elizabethan English for every reading. Therefore, I do not recommend reading in short snippets if you are also dialect challenged.Do keep in mind Marlowe (as Shakespeare) was trying to make a living, not write for the ages. He's trying to entice you to buy a ticket and be charmed. He succeeds admirably. There is something for everyone: action, derring do, comedy, and sharp insights. Marlowe is your mysterious, wild, sometimes trecherous friend; brilliant, but can you trust him? Probably not. If he was a vintage southern American, he might say "I didn't take you to raise." Would he lie to you? mislead you? Of course. But in everything I have read of Marlowe's I hear his voice; he is *there.* With Shakespeare, I do not have that certainty. Recommend reading "The Reckoning" by Charles Nicholl for an excellent biography on Marlowe. It reads like an excellent mystery, which he was.
Rating: 
Summary: Good accessible edition
Review: This is a generally good and easily available, inexpensive edition of Marlowe's plays. My only reservation about it is Steane's edition of Dr. Faustus. He makes the worst of both major texts, taking the general outline from the 1616 text but throwing in a lot of corrupt scraps from the 1604 edition for the clown scenes. I would advise anyone who wants to read Dr. Faustus to look elsewhere. I'm convinced that the 1604 version is on the whole a corrupt and truncated version of the play, but if you prefer it you might look into the Folger Library edition. If on the other hand you would rather read the play more or less as I think Marlowe wrote it, try the Signet edition edited by Sylvan Barnet. The other plays present no major textual problems (except for The Massacre at Paris, which is pretty hopeless) and this is a fine place to meet them.
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