Master Faustus (short story)

Master Faustus is the sixteenth story of The Shakespeare Notebooks, featuring.

Summary
One of the more extraordinary inclusions in the Shakespeare Notebooks in this extract from a play entitled Master Faustus. On the face of it, this seems to be either an early draft or a reworking of the play Doctor Faustus - which was written, of course, by Shakespeare's contemporary Christopher Marlowe. Or was it? Did Shakespeare include in his Notebooks material actually written by Mawlowe, or is this proof that Marlowe himself derived his own work from a previous text by Shakespeare?

Whatever the truth, this extract makes for fascinating reading - not least for the inclusion of Marlowe as a character within the drama. His death has some resonance with the actual event, though with its inclusion of "Daleks" (presumably evil spirits) this is evidently intended as a "fantasie".

Characters

 * Christopher Marlowe
 * Daleks
 * Dobbin
 * Dullberry
 * Dullberry

Continuity

 * The Master once again addresses himself as "Magister". (TV: The Dæmons)
 * The Master shows Marlowe the music of the spheres. (TV: Music of the Spheres)
 * The Master is drawn to the sound of drums. (TV: Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords)
 * "Magister" compares himself and the Doctor as "Lords Temporal... falling in endless fight like Lucifer and Gabriel". The Eighth Doctor once said that "the Devil" would be a fair description of (PROSE: Prologue) and, on another occasion, suggested that the archangel Gabriel may have been one of his past identities, although on this point he was perhaps joking. (PROSE: Vampire Science)