Chronology of William Shakespeare's Plays - Chronology

Chronology

There are five major scholarly editions of the Complete Works of Shakespeare: The Riverside Shakespeare (G. Blakemore Evans, 1974; 2nd edn., 1996), The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett and William Montgomery, 1986; 2nd edn., 2005), The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition (Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard and Katharine Eisaman Haus, 1997; 2nd edn., 2008), The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works (Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan, 1998; 2nd edn. 2002) and The RSC Shakespeare: William Shakespeare, Complete Works (Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, 2007).

Arden presents the plays alphabetically without any attempt to construct an overall chronology. Oxford, Riverside, Norton and RSC all present chronologies which differ from one another. Accordingly, dates in the following lists are approximate means. This list adopts the Oxford Shakespeare chronology, although none of the major chronologies has any real authority over any of the others.