A Short Introduction to the playwright John Webster

bomb.gif (3058 bytes) JOHN WEBSTER 1578 - 1630

A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

i've adapted this from research material i have come across on the life and works of John Webster.... not much is known about him except what is here in this write-up. if you have more information, please send it to me and i'll be glad to put it up or make corrections.

John Webster was the eldest son of the owner of a business engaging in the making, hiring and selling of coaches, wagons and carts in Cow Lane. Living in the Smithfield area of London, the family belonged to St Sepulcre's parish. As no coachmaker's company was incoporated until 1677, John Webster senior and later his son, Edward became freemen of the Merchant Taylor's Company, whose school John Webster almost certainly attended before passing to the New Inn and being admitted to the Middle Temple on 1st August 1589.

The width of his reading in classical and modern authors and his method of dramatic composition revealed a studious mind. His planes contan trial scenes and many legal allusions. His family's concern with practical aspects of mounting entertainments - his father is known to have supplied transport to both players and for shows and pageants between 1591 to 1613 - no doubt combined with Webster's own experience of inns of Court Revels to produce an active interest in the theatre. He had a share in 'Arches of Triumph', a coronation entertainment of 1604 and in 1624, composed a Lord Mayor's Pageant "Monuments of Honor' describing himself on the title page as 'Iohn Webster, Merchant Taylor' Though 'born-free' of the Merchant Taylor's Company, that is, he had an inherited right to become a freeman, upon reaching his majority and paying a fee (as distinct from serving as an apprentice) he did not exercise tis right until 1615. 2 years later, Henry Fitzjeffrey in 'Notes from Blackfriars', 'Satyres and Satyricall Epigrams' expressed some doubt about the dramatist's true profession. 'the play-wright, the cart-wright: whether, either ?' The satirist had no doubt, however, about including Webster among typical frequenters of the Blackfriars threatre. The family business was also mentioned by William Heminges in a mock elegy for the loss of Thomas Randolph's little finger in an affray of 1632.

The earliest records of John Webster's employment as a dramatist are found in the diary - more properly and account book of the theatre manager and financer Phillip Henslowe who in 1602, paid Webster together with Anthony Munday, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle and Michael Drayton for work on 'Caesers Fall' and 'Christmas Comes But Once A Year' both now lost, and 'Lady Jane', a 2 part play which probably survives rescontructed and shortened in 'The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt' in 1607.

In 1604, Webster wrote the Induction and probably a part of Pasarelo for 'The Malcontent', a tragicomedy by John Marston who, though the same age as Webster, had entered the Middle Temple in 1595. 2 city comedies, 'Westward Ho!' and 'Northward Ho!' written by Webster and Dekker for Paul's boys were performed in 1604 and 1605. His address to the reader of his 1st tragedy, 'The White Devil' performed and published in 1612 expresses admiration for Heywood to whose 'Apology for Actors' he contributed a commendatory poem in the same year, as well as Dekker, Shakespeare, Beaumont , Fletcher and the scholarly dramatists George Chapman and Ben Johnson. Webster also refers to the play's unsymphathetic reception, despite which his 2nd tragedy, 'The Duchess of Malfi' seems to have followed it quickly since some of it's material was derived from sources published in 1612. Though the play cannot have been completed before the late 1612, it must have been performed before December 1614 the date of the death of William Ostler, the actor who 1st played Antonio Bologna.

At 'Monumental Column' Webster's elegy on the death of Prince Henry the heir to the throne appeared in 1613. The 6th edition of Sir Thomas Overbury's characters in 1615 contained 32 new characters including those of an 'excellent actor' and 'a reverent judge' and 'an ordinary widow' which are attributed to Webster. In the epistle dedicatory of his tragicomedy 'The Devil's Law Case' dated 1617, Webster mentions a play called 'Guise' whose date and genre nothing certain is known. In September 1624, Webster, Dekker, William Rowley and John Ford quickly wrote 'The Late Murder of the Son upon the Mother' or 'Keep the Widow Waking', a play we only know about through the Proceedings of the Court of Star Chamber for no text survives though it was acted often. On 29th October 1624, the Guild of Merchant Taylors celebrated it's inauguration of one of their members Sir John Gore, as Lord Mayor of London with a pageant prepared by John Webster, the pageant wagons for which were probably supplied by his brother Edward. It cost the 1000 pounds.

Webster may have had a collaborating hand in Middleton's comedy 'Anything for a Quiet Life' 1620 - 21 and 'The Fair Maid of the Inn' which was liscenced for production in 1626 and printed in Beaumont and Fletcher first folio in 1647. The dates of his other extrant plays are uncertain. Probably between 1624 and 1625 he collaborated with Rowley and perhaps Heywood for the comedy 'A Cure for the Cuckold' and wrote some part of the minor tragedy 'Appius and Virginia'. Though he was the author of some occasional verses, Webster seems to have written no other plays and it is presumed that he died in 1630.

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