A Woman Killed with Kindness[1] is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the most critical attention among Heywood's works.[2] Along with the anonymous Arden of Faversham, Heywood's play has been regarded as the apex of Renaissance drama's achievement in the subgenre of bourgeois or domestic tragedy.
The play was originally performed by Worcester's Men, the company for which Heywood acted and wrote in the early Jacobean era. The records of Philip Henslowe show that Heywood was paid £6 for the play in February and March 1603. The 1607 quarto was printed by William Jaggard for the bookseller John Hodgets. A second quarto was issued in 1617 by William Jaggard's son Isaac Jaggard.[3]
The plot of Heywood's play derives from an Italian novel by Illicini, which was translated into English and published in The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter (1566).
