The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare

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Webster, John

Webster, John (c.1579–1634),
dramatist. The son of a coachmaker, he probably went to the Merchant Taylors' School, then to the Inns of Court. He worked for several companies, including the King's Men and the Children of Paul's—for whom he composed two satirical comedies, Westward Ho (1607) and Northward Ho (1607), in collaboration with Thomas Dekker. He also wrote an intriguing tragicomedy, The Devil's Law-Case (c.1619), and prose essays: in 1615 he added 32 new Characters to Sir Thomas Overbury's Theophrastic collection, New and Choice Characters of Several Authors. But Webster is best known for writing two of the greatest Jacobean tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613). These are astonishingly bleak investigations into the corrupt system of ‘courtly reward and punishment’ which both sustains and devastates the European aristocracy. Central to the...

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