Chronology of Shakespeare plays

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The precise chronology of Shakespeare's plays as they were first written and performed is impossible to determine, as there is no authoritative record and many of the plays were performed many years before they were published.

Pirated editions are the first printed versions of several plays, but many of Shakespeare's works remained unpublished until the First Folio (1623). There is no play mentioned as Shakespeare's by his contemporaries that we do not have, except Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won. Shakespeare's exact role in writing numerous existing plays is debated, however.

Scholars beginning with Edmond Malone have reconstructed the plays' relative chronology by various means, including contemporary allusions and records of performance, entries in the Stationers' Register, dates of publication as reflected on the title pages of individual plays, visceral impressions and computer studies of the development of the playwright's writing style over time, and (particularly) a 1598 list of many of Shakespeare's plays then extant by Francis Meres.

While many Stratfordian scholars (see Shakespeare Authorship) have adopted a generally accepted order (see below), many dates continue to be debated and all dates should be taken as highly speculative. A number of orthodox scholars, as well as most Oxfordian researchers, dissent from this Stratfordian dating. For a dissenting chronology that reflects the views of these researchers, see Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays - Oxfordian.

(Dates in parentheses indicate the date of first publication only.)

1590 (1598) Henry VI, Part I

Stationers' Register on 25 February 1598.
1590 (1594) Henry VI, Part II
1590 (1595) Henry VI, Part III

Parodied by Robert Greene in 1592.
1592 (1602) Richard III

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1592 (1623) Comedy of Errors

If this is the same as the play entitled "The Night of Errors," it was performed on 28 December 1594. Probably the "errors" in Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1593 (1594) Titus Andronicus

According to the first published edition it was performed by a company that folded in early 1593. In 1594 Philip Henslowe referred to it as a "new" play. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1593 (1623) Taming of the Shrew
1594 (1623) Two Gentlemen of Verona

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. The work may have been based on Bartholomew Yong's translation of Montemayor's Diana, which was done in 1583 but not published until 1598.
1594 (1598) Love's Labour's Lost

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1594 (1597) Romeo and Juliet

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1595 (1597) Richard II

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1595 (1600) A Midsummer Night's Dream

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1596 (1622) King John

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1596 (1600) The Merchant of Venice

Recorded at Stationers' Register on 22 July 1598. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1597 Henry IV, Part I

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
1594-1597 (1603?) Love's Labour's Won

In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. In Christopher Hunt's August 1603 booklist. A lost play.
1598 (1600) Henry IV, Part II
1599 (1600) Henry V

Chorus expresses hope for the Earl of Essex's Irish expedition of 1599.
1599 (1623) Julius Caesar

Mentioned by Thomas Platter in 1599.
1599 (1600) Much Ado About Nothing
1599 (1623) As You Like It

Stationers' Register in August 1600
1597-1600 (1602) The Merry Wives of Windsor
1601 (1603) Hamlet

Stationers' Register in July 1602 describes it as “lately acted.”
1602 (1623) Twelfth Night
1602 (1609) Troilus and Cressida

Stationers' Register in February 1603.
1603 (1623) All's Well That Ends Well

No contemporary reference.
1603 (1622) Othello

Performed November 1604.
1603-06 (1608) King Lear

Stationers' Register in November 1607.
1603-06 (1623) Macbeth
1603 (1623) Measure for Measure

Court records show it was performed December 1604.
1606 (1623) Antony and Cleopatra

Stationers' Register in May 1608.
1607 (1623) Coriolanus
1607 (1623) Timon of Athens (probably revised by Thomas Middleton)
1608 (1609) Pericles Prince of Tyre (probably revised by George Wilkins)

Stationers' Register in May 1608.
1609 (1623) Cymbeline
1610 (1623) The Winter's Tale
1611 (1623) The Tempest
1612 (1623) Henry VIII (probably written in collaboration with John Fletcher)

Was performed on 29 June 1613, when the Globe Theatre burnt down.
1612 (1728) Cardenio (written in collaboration with John Fletcher)

Was performed in 1613. Published only in an adaptation by Lewis Theobald entitled Double Falshood; essentially a lost play.
1612 (1634) The Two Noble Kinsmen (written in collaboration with John Fletcher).

The following plays have been attributed to Shakespeare but are in fact of different or uncertain authorship:

1592-1595 (1844) Sir Thomas More

Originally written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, and heavily revised perhaps ten years later by Thomas Heywood, Thomas Dekker and (perhaps) William Shakespeare, whose writing has been tentatively identified as "Hand D" in the manuscript.
1600 (1600) Sir John Oldcastle

Philip Henslowe's diary records it was actually written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye and Robert Wilson in collaboration.
1604 (1605) The London Prodigal

Acted by Shakespeare's company and published under his name, but the style is not his.
1605 (1608) A Yorkshire Tragedy

Acted by Shakespeare's company and published under his name, but the style is not his. More probably by Thomas Middleton.