Christopher Marlowe to receive co-authorship credit on three Shakespeare plays

Christopher Marlowe will share an authorship credit with William Shakespeare on three plays about Henry VI.

The long-held belief that Marlowe was Shakespeare has been widely dismissed, but the Elizabethan dramatists will appear jointly on the title pages for plays published this month by Oxford University Press, reported The Guardian.

International scholars who analyzed texts for the new edition believe Shakespeare more frequently collaborated with other playwrights than was previously believed.

Parts one through three of the Henry VI series are now believed to be among as many as 17 plays written with others, which is more than twice the number of collaborators credited in the last Oxford Shakespeare, which was published 30 years ago.

Marlowe has been suspected as a co-author of the Henry VI plays since the 1700s, but this will be the first permanent credit he's received in Shakespeare's collected works.