Introduction

Abstract

What is not known about William Shakespeare’s career as a playwright is considerable. There is no certainty about when it began — probably towards the end of the 1580s. There is also no certainty about when it ended — probably no later than 1613, three years before his death. No one can fix precisely when any one of his plays was written or even first performed. It is clear, however, that his career spanned something more than the last decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and most of the first decade of the reign of King James I, who succeeded her as sovereign of England at her death on 24 March 1603. It is also clear that from 1594 onwards, Shakespeare was an ‘attached’ or house playwright, providing plays exclusively for performance by an all-male acting company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men during Elizabeth’s reign and the King’s Men during James’s.