Marston, John (1576–1634)

English satirist and dramatist. His early plays, the revenge tragedies Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge (1599), were followed by a number of satirical comedies including What You Will (1601), The Malcontent (1604), and The Dutch Courtesan (1605).

Marston also collaborated with dramatists George Chapman and Ben Jonson in Eastward Ho (1605), which satirized the Scottish followers of James I, and for which the authors were imprisoned. His own satires include The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image (1598) and The Scourge of Villanie (1598).

He was probably born in Coventry. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, he studied law at the Middle Temple. As early as 1601 he was satirized under the name of Demetrius in Jonson's The Poetaster. However, in 1604, Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson, with expressions of affection and esteem, and a year later he was collaborating with Jonson.