The Fair Penitent appears earlier in "Don Quixote" by Cervantes. In this story Lothario is urged by his lifelong friend Anselmo to attempt to seduce his wife in order to test her faithfulness. At first most unwilling he eventually enters into the scheme with skill and success. This earlier Lothario is a successful seducer. Malcolm Goldstein edited "The Fair Penitent" for a modern edition in 1969. Critics, both traditional and modern, have debated whether Calista is actually "penitent" for her infidelity. The Fair Penitent The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy "The Fatal Dowry," the Philip Massinger and Nathan
Fair Em Greene; but since Greene ridicules the play's author and parodies two lines from the closing scene in his 1591 pamphlet "Farewell to Folly", this attribution also seems unsound. "Fair Em" has a clear relationship with one of Greene's plays, "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay;" it seems most likely that the author of "Fair Em" borrowed from Greene. Since Greene's play is thought to date to c. 1589, "Fair Em" would have to have originated between that date and the publication of "Farewell to Folly" in 1591. This span of 1589–91 conforms to the dating based on the Lord Strange connection,