born 1580, London, Eng. died 1632 British playwright. Little is known of his life, but he may have been an actor who began writing plays later in his career. He collaborated with several leading dramatists, including Thomas Dekker. Webster is best remembered for the revenge tragedies The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (published 1623), both of which concern the murders and bloody deeds that arise out of family quarrels among the Italian nobility. They are often considered the greatest 17th-century English tragedies apart from those of William Shakespeare