The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as
Doctor Faustus, is a play by
Christopher Marlowe, based on the German story
Faust.
Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlowe's death and at least 10 years after the first performance of the play. It is the most controversial Elizabethan play outside of
Shakespeare, with few critics coming to any agreement as to the date or the nature of the text.