Marlowe’s play retains its power to shock even today, and this editiongives full value to its three overriding themes of sexual favouritism, political confrontation and sheer cruelty. Critics in the last twentyyears, who have focused on the overtly sexual relationship between Edward and his favourite Gaveston, have hailed it as a ‘gay classic’;earlier interpretations concentrated rather on the deposition by hissubjects of a weak king, reading it in tandem with Shakespeare’s Richard II. The introduction shows how the play works to give theaudience an equal emotional commitment to opposing points of view andconcludes that this is what makes Edward II such an uncomfortable andchallenging play.