None of Marlowe's plays or poems exist in manuscript (for one partial exception, see the discussion of The Massacre at Paris, below). Our earliest witnesses are printed. Printed texts reveal a great deal about the circumstances of printing; but they can also be encouraged to speak about the circumstances of composition and consumption. A chapter about Marlovian texts and authorship is thus also a chapter about critics and readers, about tastes and preferences: not just about what Marlowe wrote but about how it was received.

The first of Marlowe's texts to reach print was Tamburlaine, possibly his first play. On 14 August 1590 the publisher Richard Jones made an entry in the Stationers' Register (the register in which publishers entered their right to a work) for the two parts of Tamburlaine. In the same year he published both parts as a single volume, in a small octavo format.

The title page is an endearing example of early modern advertising. It provides a racy plot summary, boasts of recent stage success, and promotes the quarto as hot off the press: