By the middle of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Middleton and Shakespeare must have known each other, and each other's work, pretty well. The extent and nature of that artistic relationship is, however, currently being rapidly rewritten. Scholars now agree that they collaborated on Timon of Athens, and a consensus is almost emerging that the texts of Macbeth and Measure for Measure in the 1623 Folio represent Middleton adaptations of Shakespeare plays. But – the recent suggestion of All's Well That Ends Well is a case in point – there's probably more to come (Maguire and Smith 2012a). Two contemporary critical strands converge to make it highly likely that further Middletonian collaboration or adaptation will be discovered in the Shakespeare canon: the new embrace of the collaborative energies of early modern theatre; and a quantifiable and increasingly robust understanding of the textual markers of Middleton's authorship. Currently, only the writing partnership with John Fletcher at the end of Shakespeare's career is known to have lasted beyond a single play, but Middleton may yet emerge as a more significant collaborator. In addition, Middleton's own plays show him to be a creative and responsive early reader and reviser of the older playwright's work.

Thomas Middleton was born in 1580 in Ironmonger Lane in St Lawrence parish in the city of London, just off the commercial thoroughfare of Cheapside that would be such a potent setting for many of his city plays. His father William was a wealthy bricklayer granted a coat of arms in 1568 and a crest showing a chained marmoset or ape. His mother Anne remarried in 1586 shortly after William's death.