A Yorkshire Tragedy

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A Yorkshire Tragedy was an English play printed in 1608. The title page claims that William Shakespeare was its author. This attribution has rarely been believed, since the play was not included in the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's works. Furthermore, stylistic analysis of the text does not indicate Shakespeare's hand, and does indicate strongly the hand of Thomas Middleton.

The real incidents that gave rise to the play occurred at Calverley Hall, Yorkshire, early in 1605, and were reported in an anonymous pamphlet by John Stow the chronicler, and by a balladeer. The murders were also dramatized in a play entitled The Miseries of Inforst Marriage (1607, by George Wilkins). A Yorkshire Tragedy was acted at the Globe Theatre and listed in the Stationer's Register as being by "Wylliam Shakespere."

The protagonist is based on the Master of Calverly Hall (known as Calverley), a vicious rake and gambler, but he is known in the play only as 'The Husband'. In keeping with the pamphlet's version of events, the play emphasizes the Husband's cruelty and his violence. He grows indebted at gambling and lavish living. When the Master of the College brings him to his senses and convinces him of his sins, the Husband repents, but his repentance turns to a strange sense of shame. He realizes that he has left his noble family in ruin, he kills two of his children, so that they will never "ask an usurer bread," and he then seriously wounds his wife.

The play is unusual in consisting of only ten scenes.

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