Day, John

1574 – 1640?

35 works on record

Biography

John Day was born in Cawston, Norfolk, and educated at Ely. In 1592 he became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, but he was expelled in the next year for stealing a book. He became a playwright, collaborating on or authoring 22 plays. Little is known of his personal life outside of a description by Ben Jonson in 1618/19 as a "rogue" and a "base fellow." It is likely that he was the "John Daye, yeoman" who killed fellow dramatist Henry Porter in Southwark 1599, although if he did murder his colleague it did not interrupted his writing career. The date of his death is unknown, but an elegy on him by John Tatham was published in 1640.

Works

The Parliament of Bees

1988

A critical edition of John Day's The parliament of bees

1979

Nero & other plays; edited, with introd. and notes, by Herbert P. Horne [and others]

The Blind-Beggar of Bednal-Green, vvith The merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman, as it was divers times publickly acted by the Princes Servants