The Bard may have had a little more help from his friends than previously thought, including his colleague and fiercest rival.

Born in the same year as William Shakespeare, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe died in a house in Deptford in 1593 aged just 29. Witnesses testified that he was stabbed in the eye during a brawl about the payment of a bill. However, his mysterious demise has provoked plenty of speculation over the years, with some supporting the theory that he faked his own death and continued writing under the name of William Shakespeare.

Christopher Marlowe, 1585, by an unknown artist. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

That suggestion is now widely discounted. However, Marlowe is about to share a co-writing credit with the Bard. The two dramatists, who were colleagues and rivals, will be listed for the first time as co-authors of the three Henry VI plays, Parts One, Two and Three, in The New Oxford Shakespeare edition of Shakespeare’s works.

The Henry VI plays have long been thought to be the work of more than one writer, with Marlowe’s involvement mooted since the 18th century. Only now, have academics been able...