Thomas Kyd

Thomas Kyd (1558–1594) was an English dramatist, born in London and educated at the Merchant Taylors' School. He wrote for the Elizabethan public stage in the late 1580s and early 1590s, and for a time shared a writing room with Christopher Marlowe.

His The Spanish Tragedy, a play of murder, madness and revenge introduced by the ghost of a slain courtier, was among the most popular plays of its age and helped establish the revenge tragedy later taken up by Shakespeare and others. Arrested in 1593 on suspicion of heresy, he died the following year, in his mid-thirties.