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Shakespeare of Stratford/Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Works

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CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS


The order and approximate date of composition of the plays written during the last half of Shakespeare’s career have been fixed with a good deal of definiteness. From Henry V, Julius Cæsar, and Much Ado, all produced about 1599–1600, a marked development in mannerisms and style, and the existence of a considerable body of contemporary allusions, enable critics to arrange the sequence of maturer plays in a series not likely to be fundamentally shaken. For the earlier plays and the sonnets this is not true. We cannot determine with any approach to certainty the time or manner in which Shakespeare began to write. Biographers like to infer that his poetical work commenced immediately after he came to London—say, in 1587–1588—or even before he left Stratford. Some assume that he began with narrative poetry, e.g. Venus and Adonis, others with an independent play like The Comedy of Errors, others as reviser of old plays like Titus Andronicus and Henry VI. There is, however, no positive evidence that any line of his writing was in existence before 1592, though the circumstantial evidence is strong against the possibility that the great quantity of writing we know him to have achieved by 1597, and the vast artistic progress we know him to have made, can have been the product of only five years.

Another fact which makes it impossible to date with positiveness Shakespeare’s earlier plays is that Elizabethan dramatic fashions changed very rapidly during the period from 1590 till 1600 and that Shakespeare’s

DATES AND SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS

Date of composition (?) Comedies Histories Tragedies Dramatic poems Chief Source First definite mention First printed Conjectural dates of
Fleay Alden Adams
1588–1594 Comedy of Errors       Plautus Dec. 28, 1594 (Helmes) 1623 1594 1590–1591 1588–1589
1590 Love’s Labour’s Lost       Unknown 1598 (Meres) 1598   1590–1591 1592
1591 Two Gentlemen of Verona       Montemayor 1598 (Meres) 1623 1591–1595 1591–1592 1592–1594
1592   Henry VI, Pts. II & III     Old plays, Holinshed Sept., 1592 (Greene) 1623   1590–1592 1592
1592       Venus and Adonis Ovid Apr. 18, 1593 (S. R.) 1593     1592–1593
1593–1594       Lucrece Ovid, Livy May 9, 1594 (S. R.) 1594     1593–1594
1593     Titus Andronicus   ?Older play Jan.23, 1594 (performance) 1594      
1594   Richard III     Holinshed Oct. 19, 1597 (S. R.) 1597 1594 1592–1593 1595
1594 Midsummer Night's Dream       Unknown 1598 (Meres) 1600 1595 1593–1595 1596
1595   Richard II     Holinshed Aug. 29, 1597 (S. R.) 1597 1595 1594–1595 1595
1595     Romeo and Juliet   Arthur Brooke July, 1596–Apr., 1597 (L.d. Hunsdon’s Co.) 1597 1595–1596 1594–1597 1593–1596
1595–1596   King John     Older plays 1598 (Meres) 1623 1596 1592–1593 1595
1594–1600       Sonnets   1598 (Meres) 1609     1592–1594
1596 Merchant of Venice       G. Fiorentino 1598 (Meres) 1600 1596–1597 1594–1596 1597
1596 Taming of the Shrew       Older play ? ? ? 1623 1603 1596–1597 1597
1597   1 Henry IV     Older play, Holinshed Feb. 25, 1598 (S. R.) 1598 1597 1597–1598 1597
1598   2 Henry IV     Holinshed Aug. 23, 1600 (S. R.) 1600 1597–1598 1597–1598 1597–1598
1599   Henry V     Holinshed Aug. 4, 1600 (S. R.) 1600 1599 1599 1598
1599   Henry VI, Pt. 1     Older play, Holinshed   1623   1590–1592 1594–1595, 1598–1599
1599     Julius Cæsar   Plutarch Sept. 21, 1599 (T. Platter’s diary); 1599–1601 (Weever) 1623 1600 1599–1600 1599
1599–1600 Merry Wives of Windsor       Unknown Jan. 18, 1602 (S. R.) 1602 1600 1598–1599 1598
1600 Much Ado about Nothing       Bandello Aug. 4, 1600 (S. R.) 1600 1597–1598 1599 1599
1600 As You Like It       Lodge Aug. 4, 1600 (S. R.) 1623 1599 1599–1600 1599
1601 Twelfth Night       Barnabe Rich Feb. 2, 1602 (Manningham) 1623 1601–1602 1601 1599
1601     Hamlet   Older play July 26, 1602 (S. R.) 1603 1603 1602–1604 1601
1602     Troilus and Cressida   Chaucer, Caxton Feb. 7, 1603 (S. R.) 1609 1602 1601–1602 1602
1603 Measure for Measure       Older plays Dec. 26, 1604 (Court performance) 1623 1604 1603 1603–1604
1596–1606 All’s Well that Ends Well       Boccaccio ?1598 (Meres) 1623 1593–1601 1602–1604 1596, 1600–1
1604     Othello   Cinthio Nov. 1, 1604 (Court performance) 1622 1604 1604 1604
1605     Lear   Older play, Sidney Dec. 26, 1606 (Court performance) 1608 1605 1605–1606 1605
1606     Macbeth   Holinshed Apr. 20, 1610 (Forman’s diary) 1623 1606 1606 1606
1607     Timon of Athens   Plutarch, older play? ? ? ? 1623 1606–1607 1607–1608 1607
1607     Antony and Cleopatra   Plutarch May 20, 1608 (S. R.) 1623 1607 1607–1608 1607
1606–1608 Pericles       Gower May 20, 1608 (S. R.) 1609 1608 1607–1608 1607
1608–1609     Coriolanus   Plutarch 1609? (allusion in Jonson’s Silent Woman) 1623 1608 1609 1608–1609
1610 Cymbeline       Holinshed, Boccaccio 1610? (undated note in Forman) 1623 1609 1610 1609–1610
1610–1611 Winter’s Tale       Greene May 15, 1611 (Forman) 1623 1610 1611 1610–1611
1611 Tempest       Contemporary pamphlets, etc. Nov. 1, 1611 (Court performance) 1623 1610 1611 1611
1613   Henry VIII     Holinshed June 29, 1613 (Globe Theatre fire) 1623 1613 1612 1613

personal taste and powers developed even more. The conditions of the day led to radical revision of plays, almost as often as they were revived, to suit the changing manners of the theatre and the playwright. Some of Shakespeare’s earlier works are therefore palimpsests, containing writing of several different periods, impossible to refer to a single point in the poet’s development. Love’s Labour’s Lost and All’s Well that Ends Well (probably originally presented under the title of Love’s Labour’s Won) are striking examples of this mixture of styles.

A list of Shakespeare’s works, classified according to type, and arranged in conjectural chronological order follows. For purposes of comparison the dates assigned by three other critics, Mr. Fleay, Professor Alden, and Professor Adams, are added in the last three columns. Titles of works which are of doubtful or only partial authenticity are printed in italic.