ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM (FAVERSHAM), the title of an anonymous play, the first quarto of which was printed, in black letter, in 1592; there is a copy of this edition in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The plot is founded on the story of Thomas Arden, mayor of Faversham (1548), who was murdered by his wife, her lover and accomplices in 1552. The style is dignified and restrained and it has been suggested that the play was, at any rate, revised by Shakespeare. There is, however, no internal evidence to support or refute this theory, and it is more probable that the author was Thomas kyd (q.v.) or one of his school.
The play was acted in 1592, and not again until it was pro duced in London in 1897 and at Cambridge, England (by the Marlowe Dramatic Society) in 1921.
See Arden of Feversham, intro. by A. H. Bullen (1887) ; J. A. Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors (1900) ; The Lamentable and True Tragedy of M. Arden of Feversham, intro. by A. F. Hopkinson (1907).