John Marston

John Marston (1575?–1634) was an English satirist, poet and dramatist, born in Oxfordshire and educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and the Middle Temple. In 1598 he published two books of verse, The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image and Certaine Satyres, and The Scourge of Villanie, the second under the pseudonym W. Kinsayder. The satires are harsh, crowded and deliberately obscure, and their rough manner made them a landmark of the Elizabethan verse-satire fashion of the 1590s.

In 1599 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London issued the Bishops' Ban, ordering Marston's two books, with other satires, to be burned. He turned to the stage, writing plays such as Antonio and Mellida, The Malcontent and The Dutch Courtesan, and quarrelled in print and on stage with Ben Jonson. He was ordained in 1609 and served as rector of Christchurch, Hampshire, from 1616 until he resigned the living in 1631; he died in 1634. Only his verse from the 1598 volumes is gathered here, not his plays.