Arthur Brooke wrote The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, a major source for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Brooke’s narrative poem was published in 1562, several decades before Shakespeare’s play. It tells a version of the lovers’ story in English verse and supplied many important elements later adapted by Shakespeare, including the feud, the secret marriage, the potion plan, and the tragic ending.
Brooke’s poem was itself not the original invention of the story. It was based on earlier Italian and French versions, especially a prose narrative by Matteo Bandello and a French translation associated with Pierre Boaistuau. Shakespeare transformed this inherited plot through dramatic structure, vivid dialogue, comic subplots, and a much more developed treatment of characters such as Mercutio and the Nurse.
The poem’s full title is often shortened in discussion. Its author is Arthur Brooke, not Edmund Spenser or Christopher Marlowe, both important Elizabethan writers but not the source-poem author.