The English Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, Thomas Dekker, was born in approximately 1572 and lived until August 25, 1632.  During his busy life, he was a versatile and prolific writer for several decades.  This brought him into the lives of many of the era’s most famous playwrights such as Marlowe, Lodge and Shakespeare.

In this post, we will be looking at The Shoemaker’s Holiday which is curiously also known as The Gentle Craft.  First performed in 1599, by the Admiral’s Men, the play falls into the subgenre of city comedy.  The drama depicts every day life in London during the Elizabethan period.  Dekker has been called the “Dickens of English Theater”.

You may read the play called The Shoemaker’s Holiday at::

http://www.bartleby.com/47/1/11.html

In the alternative, you may listen to this play read in an audiobook format here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_TSRXEzJs