Three Revenge Tragedies

Nov 17, 2025 5:30 AM

Author:Cyril Tourneur,John Webster,Thomas Middleton

Following the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign in the early seventeenth century, the new court of King James was beset by political instability and moral corruption. This atmosphere provided fertile ground for the dramatists of the age, whose plays explore the ways in which social decadence and the abuse of power breed resentment and lead inexorably to violence and bloody retribution. In Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, the debauched son of an Italian Duke attempts to rape the virtuous Gloriana - a veiled reference to Elizabeth I. Webster's The White Devil depicts a sinister world of intrigue and murderous infidelity, while The Changeling, perhaps Middleton's supreme achievement, powerfully portrays a woman bringing about her own unwitting destruction. All three are masterpieces of brooding intensity, dominated by images of decay, disillusionment and death.

Reviews

Charlie Johnson in the Flames is that good, belonging to the same order of thrillers by writers like Graham Greene, Len Deighton and Lionel Davidson

—— Independent

A painfully believable novel about the human cost of war in the Balkans

—— Lisa Jardine , Sunday Times

Michael Ignatieff's cast of characters... are drawn to perfection

—— Irish Times

Michael Ignatieff's third novel has a compressed, cinematic brilliance. You can read it in two hours, but the images it contains linger far longer than that...The texture of the novel marks this down as superior fiction

—— Sunday Telegraph

The quality of Coetzee's writing lies in his inner vision: dark, passionately compassionate, concerned with the nature of man

—— Financial Times

'Masterful...the sheer weight of events carries you on...a cheerful whodunnit'

—— The Times

'An auspicious fiction début...engaging and enjoyable'

—— Observer

'A delicious tale of crime'

—— Home & Country

Full of Chippendale-style hidden compartments...her narrative is absolutely enchanting'

—— Literary Review

'An emotionally-wrought novel, in turn lyrical and violent, fable-like and gutsy, in which many of its characters are on a quest to find out who they really are'

—— SUNDAY HERALD

'A claustrophobically tense novel, Wide Eyed combines Nicoll's profound love of the Scottish landscape and its people with a journalist's eye for topicality...a writer who intends to become as prominent a part of the literary landscape as the cliffs and mountains from which he draws his inspiration'

—— GLASGOW HERALD

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