WHEN DID MARLOWE WRITE DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE?

This essay disputes the traditional assumption that Dido, Queen of Carthage was Marlowe's first play. Little of the previous commentary on the issue has been grounded in the evidence, and scholars have tended to want to disbelieve one or other of the 1594 title page's direct statements about the play's origins. The essay demonstrates that the play was not written for academic performance at Cambridge, as is sometimes contended, and proposes that the likeliest interpretation of the evidence would place Dido after the Tamburlaine plays, and close to the composition of Doctor Faustus in 1588.