Thomas Kyd

Thomas Kyd (1558 to 1594) was a British playwright. He was closely associated with Christopher Marlowe, with whom he shared lodgings in 1591.

The Spanish Tragedy: or, Hieronimo is Mad Again (1592) was published anonymously, and it gained immense popularity. The play introduced a new kind of central character, an obsessive plotter, and it set a the pattern which later revenge-plays followed. See also the The Count of Monte Cristo.

The play contains extensions: Ben Jonson is known to have been paid for the additions, but the additonal passages in the 1602 edition do not seem Jonsonian. The alternative title was was given to it in 1615.

Kyd is believed to have written a lost Hamlet.