Much Ado About Nothing (1917) Yale/Appendix B
APPENDIX B
The History of the Play
The definite history of Much Ado about Nothing goes back to the first year of the seventeenth century. On August 23, 1600, this play was licensed for publication, along with the second part of Henry IV, and it appeared in the same year in the only early quarto edition. This version was evidently followed by the publishers of the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays in the 1623 Folio, and the two texts exhibit only trivial differences. It is generally assumed that the comedy was written in 1599, and there is no reason for inferring an earlier date, except the bare possibility that Much Ado about Nothing is identical with a mysterious Love's Labor's Won, listed by Francis Meres as one of Shakespeare's comedies in 1598.
The title-page of the edition of 1600 records that the play 'hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honorable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants,' i.e. by Shakespeare's company, then acting at the newly built Globe Theatre. A memorandum in the Stationers' Register, dated August 4 (1600), less than three weeks before the official license for publication, notes that Much Ado about Nothing and three other plays performed by Shakespeare's company were 'to be staied,' i.e. withheld from publication. The purpose of this unsuccessful effort to prevent the printing of the comedy was doubtless the actors' fear that circulation of the printed text might detract from the success of their performances. The substitution in the early editions of the names of Jack Wilson, Kempe and Cowley instead of Balthazar, Dogberry and Verges (cf. notes on II. iii. 39, s. d. and IV. ii.) gives welcome information regarding the creators of those parts.
Much Ado about Nothing was acted at Court, probably twice, on the occasion of the marriage of James I's daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, to Frederic, Elector Palatine, in 1613. More specific evidence of the play's popularity with Stuart audiences occurs in a poem by Leonard Digges, affixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems:
Let but Beatrice
And Benedicke be seene, loe, in a trice
The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes, all are full.
After the Restoration, Sir William Davenant (1606–1668) was responsible for an ill-advised effort to make capital out of Benedick and Beatrice by introducing them into the plot of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, in a medley called The Law against Lovers (published, 1673). A further monstrosity appeared in 1736 in The Universal Passion, an attempt by one James Miller to combine Much Ado with Molière's Princess of Elis. In 1721, the genuine play was restored to the London stage, where it has since been an established favorite. David Garrick (1717–1779) was famous in the rôle of Benedick, as a great many of the chief English and American actors have been since. In general, however, the impersonators of Beatrice have found the greatest opportunity, and distinguished actresses like Helena Faucit (Lady Martin, 1817–1898), Ellen Terry (1848–—), and Ada Rehan (1860–1916) have owed much of their success to their interpretations of this part.