How Shakespeare May Have Written Many More Plays Than You Probably Know About

Today is the traditional birthday of William Shakespeare (see our earlier article about him here). Recent years have been exciting ones for Shakespearean scholarship. Computer analysis has been enormously helpful in helping to ascertain the authorship of unattributed or misattributed writings. And the internet has greatly assisted in communication among scholars throughout the world. One of the  exciting revelations of recent years has been the degree to which the Elizabethan theatre was collaborative. It turns out to have been much more like Hollywood than most of us previously thought, with very often several hands contributing to drafting and rewriting scripts, just as is the common practice today. As a result, the list of plays in which Shakespeare may have a hand has grown considerably, as has the list of authors who had a hand in plays previously considered to have been written solely by Shakespeare. Presently, the list looks something like this:

Edmund Ironside:  A play about King Edmund II, plausibly argued by some as Shakespeare’s first play, 1587

Sir Thomas More: Written by Anthony Monday and Henry Chettle circa 1592-1593, with revisions by Dekker, Heywood and Shakespeare ca. 1596. The revised manuscript contains the only example of Shakespeare’s playwriting in his own hand

The Spanish Tragedy:  Written by Thomas Kyd, ca. 1582-1592.  Kyd died in 1594. Shakespeare added additional material ca. 1598, per scholar Douglas Bruster (2013)

(1589–1591)

Fair Em, The Miller’s Daughter of Manchester: (1590) Shakespeare may be the author

(1590–1591)

(1591): by Shakespeare and Marlowe, according to oxford

(1591–1592): By Shakespeare and George Peele

Arden of Faversham (1592): Shakespeare possibly wrote some of it.

(1592–1593)

Thomas of Woodstock: A kind of prequel to Richard II. Some feel Shakespeare wrote it or was otherwise involved.

(1592–1593) Shakespeare and Kyd 

A Knack to Know a Knave:  ca 1594, Shakespeare may have written part of it

(1594)

(1594–1595)

(1595–1596): The famous lost play, possibly known to us by another title, such as Much Ado About Nothing

(1595)

(1595)

(1595)

Locrine:(1595) Possibly written by Peele or Greene, with revisions by Shakespeare

(1596)

(1596–1597)

(1596–1597)

(1597)

(1597–1598)

(1598–1599)

Mucedorus: (1598) Some feel Shakespeare may have played a minor role in its creation

(1599)

(1599)

(1599–1600)

(1599–1601)

(1601)

(1600–1602)

Thomas Lord Cromwell(1602): Most scholars think Shakespeare wasn’t involved in any way, but there are a couple who do

(1603–1604): Possibly revised by Middleton

(1603–1604)

(1604–1605)–Possibly with Middleton

(1605–1606)

(1605–1606) Possibly with Middleton

The London Prodigal: (1605) Published under Shakespeare’s name, but some doubt it. He may have written an outline of the plot with someone else writing the lines

(1606): Possibly revised slightly by Middleton

(1606)

(1607–1608) Written with George Wilkins

The Puritan: (1607) Probably by Middleton but some think Shakespeare.

(1608)

A Yorkshire Tragedy: (1608) Published as Shakespeare’s but most think Middleton

The Merry Devil of Edmonton: (1608) Shakespeare may have played minor role in its creation

(1609–1611)

(1610)

(1610–1611)

(1612–1613) Thereby hangs a tale! A play by Shakespeare and Fletcher referred to in many documents, but thought lost for centuries, and supposed to be an adaptation of a yarn taken from Don Quixote. At least two plays have emerged which have been claimed to have actually been Cardenio. One is Double Falsehood. In 1727, Lewis Theobold first presented this play, claiming that he took it from three manuscripts of an unnamed lost Shakespeare play. A couple of prominent published editions now credit it this way. Another play, called The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, has also been claimed to be Cardenio, and has been both published and produced advertising that supposition 

(1612–1613)  Co-written with Fletcher

The Two Noble Kinsmen:(1613-1614) Co-written with Fletcher