My thesis explores how early modern playwrights navigated the complicated, and often competing, demands of theatre and text as they prepared their plays for print. My focus is on John Webster, a playwright who wrote for Shakespeare’s playing company The King’s Men. I explore how Webster attempted to create a theatrical reading experience that muddled the distinctions between the textual and the theatrical. I also trace the playwright’s interest in establishing a corporate, common version of authorship, and identify citation and commonplace as some of the means by which Webster produces his blurry self-image. His characters quote and edit one another as they speak, and Webster regularly borrows phrases from other writers. His interest in citation works alongside the intentionally permeable boundaries that the playwright inscribes into the architecture of his settings and the typography that governs the printed page. This thesis argues that the playwright’s interest in commons work to produce a distinctly Websterian authorial philosophy that is essential to understand his complex and often elusive dramatic work. The different mechanisms of Webster’s editing create different versions of authorship that the playwright inhabits, as writer, editor, and reader. Each Webster is distinct from the other, but each remains distinctly Webster.