Kyd was baptized on 6 Nov. 1558. His father, Francis Kyd, was a London citizen and a scrivener. John Kyd, a stationer, may have been a relative. Thomas entered the Merchant Taylors School in 1565, but there is no evidence that he proceeded to a university. It is possible that he followed his father’s profession before he drifted into literature. He seems to be criticized as translator and playwright in Nashe’s Epistle to Greene’s Menaphon in 1589 (cf. App. C), and a reference there has been rather rashly interpreted as implying that he was the author of an early play on Hamlet. About the same time his reputation was made by The Spanish Tragedy, which came, with Titus Andronicus, to be regarded as the typical drama of its age. Ben Jonson couples ‘sporting Kyd’ with ‘Marlowe’s mighty line’ in recording the early dramatists outshone by Shakespeare. Towards the end of his life Kyd’s relations with Marlowe brought him into trouble. During the years 1590–3 he was in the service of a certain noble lord for whose players Marlowe was in the habit of writing. The two sat in the same room and certain ‘atheistic’ papers of Marlowe’s got mixed up with Kyd’s. On 12 May 1593 Kyd was arrested on a suspicion of being concerned in certain ‘lewd and mutinous libels’ set up on the wall of the Dutch churchyard; the papers were discovered and led to Marlowe (q.v.) being arrested also. Kyd, after his release, wrote to the Lord Keeper, Sir John Puckering, to repudiate the charge of atheism and to explain away his apparent intimacy with Marlowe. It is not certain who the ‘lord’ with whom the two writers were connected may have been; possibly Lord Pembroke or Lord Strange, for whose players Marlowe certainly wrote; possibly also Henry Radcliffe, fourth Earl of Sussex, to whose daughter-in-law Kyd dedicated his translation of Cornelia, after his disgrace, in 1594. Before the end of 1594 Kyd had died intestate in the parish of St. Mary Colchurch, and his parents renounced the administration of his goods.
Collection
1901. F. S. Boas, The Works of T. K. [Includes 1 Jeronimo and Soliman and Perseda.]
Dissertations: K. Markscheffel, T. K.’s Tragödien (1886–7, Jahresbericht des Realgymnasiums zu Weimar); A. Doleschal, Eigenthümlichkeiten der Sprache in T. K.’s Dramen (1888), Der Versbau in T. K.’s Dramen (1891); E. Ritzenfeldt, Der Gebrauch des Pronomens, Artikels und Verbs bei T. K.; G. Sarrazin, T. K. und sein Kreis (1892, incorporating papers in Anglia and E. S.); J. Schick, T. K.’s Todesjahr (1899, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 277); O. Michael, Der Stil in T. K.’s Originaldramen (1905, Berlin diss.); C. Crawford, Concordance to the Works of T. K. (1906–10, Materialien, xv); F. C. Danchin, Études critiques sur C. Marlowe (1913, Revue Germanique, ix. 566); T. L. S. (June, 1921).
The Spanish Tragedy, c. 1589
S. R. 1592, Oct. 6 (Hartwell). ‘A booke whiche is called the Spanishe tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellmipeia.’ Abel Jeffes (Arber, ii. 621). [Against the fee is a note ‘Debitum hoc’. Herbert-Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 1160, quotes from a record in Dec. 1592 of the Stationers’ Company, not given by Arber: ‘Whereas Edw. White and Abell Jeffes have each of them offended, viz. E. W. in having printed the Spanish tragedie belonging to A. J. And A. J. in having printed the Tragedie of Arden of Kent, belonginge to E. W. It is agreed that all the bookes of each impression shalbe confiscated and forfayted according to thordonances to thuse of the poore of the company ... either of them shall pay for a fine 10s. a pece.’]
N.D. The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-Imperia: with the pittiful death of olde Hieronimo. Newly corrected, and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression. Edward Allde for Edward White. [Induction. Greg, Plays, 61, and Boas, xxvii, agree in regarding this as the earliest extant edition. Boas suggests that either it may be White’s illicit print, or, if that print was the ‘first impression’, a later one printed for him by arrangement with Jeffes.]
1594. Abell Jeffes, sold by Edward White.
S. R. 1599, Aug. 13. Transfer ‘salvo iure cuiuscunque’ from Jeffes to W. White (Arber, iii. 146).
1599. William White.