
	JESÚS TRONCH PÉREZ

Shakespeare’s Works : chronologies

Date range and Best guess dates from Taylor and Loughnane (2017), alongside Taylor’s 1987 chronology

(compiled by Jesús Tronch, Universitat de València, 2019)

Title [multiple authorship]	Date range	Best guess	1987	published
Sonnets	1582-1609 early		1589-1609	1609
The Two Gentlemen of Verona	1586-98	1588 early	1590-1	1623
Arden of Faversham [by anonymous and WS]	1587-92	1588 late	excluded	1592
The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus [WS and G. Peele, with added scene by T. Middleton?]	Original: 1584-94 Addition: 1608-23	1589 late Add. 1616	1592-3	1594, 1623
The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth (The First Part of the Contention ...) [by WS, C. Marlowe, and another [?]; revised by WS]	Original: 1587-91 revision: 1594-97	Orig.1590 rev. 1595	1591	1594, 1619, 1623
The Third Part of King Henry VI (True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York) [by WS, C. Marlowe, and another [?]; revised by WS]	Original: 1588-91 revision: 1594-97	Orig. 1590 late rev. 1595	1591	1595, 1623
The Taming of the Shrew	1582-93	1591 late	1590-1	1594, 1623
The Reign of King Edward III [by WS and collaborator(s)]	1588-95	1592 early	excluded	1596
The Tragedy of Richard the Third	1590-6	1592 mid-late	1592-3	1597, 1623
Venus and Adonis	1592-3	1593 early	1592-3	1593
The Rape of Lucrece	1592-4	1593 late - 1594 early	1593-4	1594
The Comedy of Errors	1589-94	1594 mid-late	1594	1623
Love's Labour's Lost	1594-7	1594 late - 594 early	1594-5	1598, 1623
Love's Labour's Won	1595-8	1595 early	1595-6	no text
The Tragedy of Richard the Second	1595-7	1595 mid	1595	1597, 1623
The First Part of King Henry the Sixth [T. Nashe, C. Marlowe, another; adapted by WS]	Original 1592 Adapt. 1592-9	Adapt. 1595	1592	1623
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet	1593-6	1595 late	1595	1597, 1599, 1623
A Midsummer Night's Dream	1594-7	1596 early	1595	1600, 1623
The Life and Death of King John	1587-98	1596 mid	1596	1623
The Merchant of Venice	1596-8	1597 early	1596-7	1600, 1623
The First Part of King Henry the Fourth	1596-7	1597 late	1596-7	1598, 1623
The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth	1597-1600	1598 early	1597-8	1600, 1623
Much Ado About Nothing	1597- 1599 early	1598 mid-late	1598	1600, 1623
Poems from The Passionate Pilgrim	1589-99	1599		1599
The Life of King Henry the Fifth	1598 Nov-1599 Sep	1599 Spring	1598-9	1600, 1623
The Tragedy Julius Caesar	1598 Sep-1599 Sep	1599 mid	1599	1623
Additions to The Spanish Tragedy	1596-1602	1599 late	excluded	1604
As You Like It	1598-1600 Aug	1600 early	1599-600	1623
The Merry Wives of Windsor	1596-1601	1600 mid-late revis. 1604?	1597-8	1602, 1623
‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ / ‘Let the bird of loudest lay’		1601	1601	1601
Twelfth Night, or What You Will	1599-1602	1601 late	1601	1623
The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida (The History of Troilus and Cressida)	1598-1603 early	1602	1602	1609, 1623
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)	Original 1575-89 Rev/Adapt 1599-1604	Orig. 1588 late Rev. 1602 early or 1603 mid	1600-1	1603, 1605, 1623
Additions to Sir Thomas More	1600-1606 May	1604	1603-4	1844
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice	1603-1604	1604 early	1603-4	1622, 1623
Measure for Measure [WS, adapted by T. Middleton]	Orig. 1603-4 Adapt. 1616-22	Orig. 1604 late Adap. 1621 late	1603	1623
All's Well that Ends Well [WS, adapted by T. Middleton]	Orig. 1603-1606 Adap. 1616-1622	Orig 1605 early Adadp. 1622	1604-5	1623
The Tragedy of King Lear (True Chronicle of the Life and Death of King Lear ...)	1604-6 Revision 1608-14	1605 late Rev. 1610 early	1605-6	1608, 1623
The Life of Timon of Athens [WS and T. Middleton]	1604-6	1606 early	1605	1623
The Tragedy of Macbeth [WS, adapted by T. Middleton]	Orig. 1606-11 Adap. 1616-22	1606 mid Adap. 1616	1606	1623
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra	1605 Sep-1607 early	1607 early	1606	1623
Pericles, Prince of Tyre [WS and G. Wilkins]	1606-1608	1608 early	1607	1609
The Tragedy of Coriolanus	1607 late-1609 late	1608 late	1608	1623
A Lover's Complaint	1592-1609	1608-9	1603-4	1609
The Winter's Tale	1609-1611 early	1609	1609	1623
The Tragedy of Cymbeline	1608-11	1610 mid-late	1610	1623
The Tempest	1610-11	1611	1611	1623
[The History of Cardenio] [J. Fletcher and WS; adap. by W. Davenant, L. Theobald and C. Cibber]	Orig. 1612-1613 1st adap. 1663-7 2nd adap. 1727	Orig. 1612	1612-13	1727
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth [All is True] [J. Fletcher and WS]	1613	1613 early summer	1613	1623
The Two Noble Kinsmen [J. Fletcher and WS]	1613-14	1613 late	1613-4	1634

Note: Titles of plays are mainly taken from the 1623 folio collection. Titles from earlier quartos appear between parenthesis. Only when multiple authorship is involved (according to Taylor and Loughnane), this appears between square brackets. Publication dates in bold indicate the text most chosen by modern editions as their basis.

Miscellaneous short poems in Taylor and Loughnane (2017) not included in this list [between parenthesis, dates of composition; between square brackets, titles in the 1986 Oxford edition]:

‘Shakespeare upon a pair of gloves’ (1592-4);

‘Shall I die?’ [‘A Song’] (1595-6);

‘To the Queen’ (1599);

Verses upon the Stanley Tomb at Tong (1602);

‘Master Ben Jonson and Master William Shakespeare’ [On Ben Jonson’] (1602?):

‘When God was pleased’ [‘An Epitaph on Elias James’] (1610);

‘Ten in the hundred’ (1614);

‘Howev’er he lived, judge not’ [‘Another Epitaph on John Combe’] (1614);

‘Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear’ [‘Epitaph on Himself’] (1616).

Taylor and Loughnane ascribe to Shakespeare the lost collaboration in Ben Jonson’s The Tragedy of Sejanus (1603). Jonson explained in his preface to the 1605 quarto of Sejanus that “this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage, wherein a second pen had a good share: in place of which I have rather chosen to puet weaker (and not doubt less pleasing) of mine own than to defraud so happy a genius of his right, by my loathed usurpation’.

Notable exclusions in Taylor and Loughnane:

The Birth of Merlin; Thomas Lord Cromwell; Fair Em; ‘A Funeral Elegy’; Edmund Ironside; The Second Maiden’s Tragedy (The Maiden’s Tragedy / The Lady’s Tragedy); Locrine; The London Prodigal; The Merry Devil of Edmonton; Mucedorus; A Yorkshire Tragedy

Also a poem included in the 1986 Oxford edition: ‘Crowns have their compass; lengh of days, their date’ at the foot of the effigy of King James I, before his Works (1616).

References:

Taylor, Gary, and Rory Loughnane. 2017. ‘The Canon and Chronology of Shakespeare’s Works’. In The New Oxford Shakespeare Authorship Companion, edited by Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan, 417–602. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, Gary. 1987. ‘The Canon and Chronology’. In Willian Shakespeare. A Textual Companion, edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, 69–161. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wells, Stanley, Gary Taylor, John Jowett, and William Montgomery, eds. 1986. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Oxford: Clarendon.