Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson was an English playwright, poet, and literary critic active in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Educated at Westminster School, he worked briefly as a bricklayer and saw military service in the Low Countries before turning to the stage. His comedies, including Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, and his court masques written with designer Inigo Jones, made him a central figure of London theatre. In 1616 he issued his Workes in folio, an unusual step for a dramatist. He gathered a circle of younger admirers and was buried standing upright in the north nave aisle of Westminster Abbey (not Poets' Corner), his grave slab inscribed "O Rare Ben Johnson" — the surname there spelled Johnson (IOHNSON), differing from Jonson's own preferred spelling of his name.