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Shakespeare was involved in many aspects of London’s professional theatrical world. He was an actor, a playwright, and a shareholder in an acting company known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which became the King’s Men when James I became king in 1603. His plays were performed on professional stages owned by his company--first the Theatre, and then, after 1599, the Globe. (After a property dispute, the Theatre was disassembled and the timbers used to build the Globe). In 1609, his company began using its own indoor theater at Blackfriars. His plays were performed in many other spaces, including the royal court, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of Court, public buildings and outdoor spaces in the provinces, and private households.

The total number of Shakespeare’s plays varies somewhat, depending on who is counting them, and how. The total shifts between 38 and 40 plays as scholars reassess references to his two lost plays--Love’s Labor’s Won and Cardenio--and analyze how large a hand he had in some collaboratively-written plays.

This category includes all publications of his plays, up to and including the First Folio in 1623; all entries for his plays in the Stationers' Register; administrative documents from the National Archives and elsewhere that make reference to his theaters and theater companies; and printed and handwritten references to seeing and/or reading his plays. Read Alan H. Nelson's thematic essay to learn more about lawsuits in Shakespeare's England.

Visit the British Library's Shakespeare in Quarto, to learn even more about actorsplayhouses and theater companies in Shakespeare's time, and to view completely digitized copies of Shakespeare's plays.

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1598
Shakespeare’s Richard II was printed in a third quarto edition in 1598, the same year as its second edition. As was the case with the first two editions, London bookseller Andrew Wise was the publisher.
1598
Richard III was an immediate success in the bookshops of London. Andrew Wise published the first edition in 1597, and copies seem to have sold out very quickly, since he published the play again the next year, in 1598, as shown here.
1598
SHAKESPEARE DOCUMENTED IS STILL GROWING! Descriptive content and transcriptions will continue to be added, updated and expanded. Check back for regular updates!
1599
John Weever’s Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion was published in 1599. Weever began his career as an aspiring poet and literary observer at Cambridge, where he was the student of William Covell at Queen’s College.
1599
Customers browsing in the bookshops of London in 1599 would have found a new version of a popular play based on the well-known story of Romeo and Juliet.
May 16, 1599
The Inquisition Post Mortem of Thomas Brend, shown here, is a near-contemporary witness of the lease for the site of the Globe on Maid Lane, Southwark, and a witness to the recent construction of the “house” itself.
ca. 1599
William Scott’s The Modell of Poesye, a treatise on poetics, includes the earliest literary criticism of Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare is not mentioned by name in the manuscript, two of his works are.
1599
The title page of the second edition of Henry IV Part 1 identifies William Shakespeare as the play’s author for the first time in print. The practice of including authorial attribution on title pages was becoming increasingly common at the turn of the century.
1599
This is the second edition of Edward III, printed by Simon Strafford for Cuthburt Burby in 1599.
1599
SHAKESPEARE DOCUMENTED IS STILL GROWING! Descriptive content and transcriptions will continue to be added, updated and expanded. Check back for regular updates!

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