"To those who report I was a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confess I do not write with a goose-quill winged with two feathers; and if they will needs make it my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to Alcestides, a tragic writer: Alcestides objecting that Euripides had only in three days composed three verses, whereas himself had written three hundred, 'Thou tell'st truth,' quoth he, 'but here's the difference: thine shall only be read for three days, whereas mine shall continue three ages."
— John Webster, Preface in The White Devil
John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was a Jacobean dramatist and poet, best known for his revenge tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. He was also a contemporary of William Shakespeare, with whom his life and career overlapped.
Very little is known about his life. No confirmed portrait of him survives. (This one
◊ is used as the cover image for many editions of his plays, but it isn't actually a portrait of him — it's a portrait of Sir John Webster, Baronet, an unrelated man who happened to have the same name.)
Most of his plays (though not his most famous two) were written in collaboration with other playwrights.
Major Plays:
- The White Devil
- The Duchess of Malfi
- The Devil's Law-Case
- A Cure For a Cuckold: Collaboration with William Rowley
Other Plays
- Caesar's Fall (1602): Lost; collaboration with four other playwrights
- Two Shapes or possibly Two Harpiesnote (1602): Lost; collaboration with four other playwrights. Some scholars believe this was an alternative title for Caesar's Fall rather than a separate play.
- Christmas Comes but Once a Year (1602): Lost; collaboration with three other playwrights
- Sir Thomas Wyatt (1602 or 1607): Collaboration with Thomas Dekker
- Westward Ho (1604): Collaboration with Thomas Dekker
- Northward Ho (1607): Collaboration with Thomas Dekker
- Guise (1615?): Lost
- Anything for a Quiet Life (1621): Collaboration with Thomas Middleton
- Late Murder in White Chapel, or Keep the Widow Waking (1624): Lost. Collaboration with either John Ford (author of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore) alone, or with Ford and two other playwrights. Notable for being Ripped from the Headlines — as the title suggests, it was an adaptation of two real-life murder cases in 1624.
- Appius and Virginia (1620s): Possibly a collaboration with Thomas Heywood
Plays attributed to him
- The Fair Maid of the Inn (1647): Mostly written by John Fletcher. Webster is one of four other playwrights believed to have contributed to it.
- Lost play that survives only in one manuscript fragment
. Not only is the author unknown, we don't even know its title. Scholars have narrowed the authorship down to two candidates: Webster and James Shirley.
