All Fools is an early Jacobean era stage play, a comedy by George Chapman that was first published in 1605. The play has often been considered Chapman's highest achievement in comedy: "not only Chapman's most flawless, perfectly balanced play," but "also his most human and large-minded." "Chapman certainly wrote no comedy in which an ingenious and well-managed plot combined so harmoniously with personages so distinctly conceived and so cleverly and divertingly executed."
Title page of the first edition of All Fools (1605)
George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. William Minto speculated that Chapman is the unnamed Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia.
Chapman. Frontispiece engraving for The Whole Works of Homer (1616) attributed to William Hole
Grave marker of Chapman now inside the church of St Giles in the Fields, London. The memorial, in the form of a Roman altar, was designed and paid for by Inigo Jones, and was previously in St Giles' churchyard.
