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
Pericles, Prince of Tyre novel on the assumption that they are based on the play and record the dialogue more accurately than the quarto. The play has been recognised as a probable collaboration since 1709, if not earlier. In that year Nicholas Rowe wrote, "there is good Reason to believe that the greatest part of that Play was not written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of it certainly was, particularly the last Act." Rowe here seems to be summarising what he believes to be a consensus view in his day, although some critics thought it was either an early Shakespeare work