Fletcher, John 1579-1625
English dramatist

He was born in Rye, Sussex. All that we know of him, apart from his work for the theatre, is that he entered Benet (now Corpus) College, Cambridge, and that he died of the plague in 1625. Much of his writing was achieved in collaboration with Francis Beaumont, Philip Massinger, William Rowley and Shakespeare. The best of his own plays are The Faithful Shepherdess, which ranks as a pastoral with Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd and Milton's Comus, The Humorous Lieutenant, acted in 1619, and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife (1624), on the favourite theme of conjugal mastery. The 10 or so plays on which he collaborated with Beaumont include the romantic comedy Philaster (1610), A King and No King (1611) and The Maid's Tragedy (1611), generally considered their best work. Collaboration with Shakespeare probably resulted in Two Noble Kinsmen (c.1613), a melodramatic version of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, and Henry VIII (or insertions therein). A vein of tender poetry in Fletcher and his relaxed type of versification are useful evidence in disentangling his various collaborations. He was the nephew of Giles Fletcher, the Elder (1546-1611) and cousin of the Spenserian poets Giles Fletcher (c.1588-1623) and Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650).