Chettle, Henry c.1560-c.1607
English dramatist and pamphleteer

Born in London, he was a printer by trade, and turned to writing when his printing-house failed. He edited Robert Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit (1592), and in 1593 published a pamphlet, Kind Harts Dreame, apologizing for Greene's attack on Shakespeare. He wrote a picaresque romance, Piers Plainnes Seven Yeres Prentiship (1595), and from 1598 turned to writing plays for Philip Henslowe's Rose Theatre in Bankside, especially The Tragedy of Hoffman (1602). He collaborated on many others, including The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green (1600, with John Day), and also wrote an elegy for Queen Elizabeth I, Englandes Mourning Garment (1603).

Bibliography: H Jenkins, The Life and Work of Henry Chettle (1934)