Although posterity has elevated William Shakespeare to a unique position in literary history, he belonged to a talented clique of writers that included Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, and Sir Walter Raleigh. The lives of Shakespeare's peers are less well known, though they contributed to a literary revolution that expanded the possibilities of drama and the English language itself. Illustrated throughout with portraits, engravings and printed documents, Charles Nicholl's group portrait clarifies how Elizabethan society valued literary talent as well as how these writers saw themselves.