All three parts of Henry Ti. were plays that Shakespeare retouehed for the stage at the very beginning of his dramatic career; but the second and third parts have unquestionably a larger proportion of his work than the first. Titus Andronieus is, another play which probably has a similar history, and which bears some slight traces of his hand. If he was the author of this bloody and revolting tragedy, as a few critics have assumed, it must have been written be fore lie had found his true self. It is far more probable that when he first attempted en tirely original work it was in comedy, and that Lore's Labour's Lost was the play. It was doubtless written as early as 1591. if not two or three years earlier. The first extant edition appeared in 159S, when the title page informs its that it had been "newly revised and augmented!' The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Comedy of Errors appear to have followed immediately; and the first draft of the poet's first tragedy, Romeo and Juliet (excluding Titus Andronicus), belongs to the same period, the play in its present form being a revised and enlarged edition. Richard 111., the first of the English historical play which was entirely the work of Shakespeare, naturally follows the trilogy of Henry 11. and was probably written in 1592 or 1593. Richard II. was produced soon after Rich ard III., though, like that play. it was not print ed until 1597. Both plays appeared without the author's name, which was added the next year in second editions of both. A Midsummer Night's Dream belongs in this group of early comedies, of which it was in all probability the last, 1594 being the date generally accepted.
The breadth of Shakespeare's literary tastes and aspirations in this period' of his career is shown by the fact that, just when his reputation as an actor and a dramatist was becoming established, he published two long nar rative poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucreee, the former in 1593 and the latter in 1591. The popularity of the Venus and Adonis led to the issue of a second edition in 1594; and at least ten more editions appeared in the next sixteen years. Probably there were others, as only single copies are extant of several of the known issues. Nothing, was known of the fourth edition until a copy was discovered in 1867, and a single copy of the twelfth has come to light more recently. Of the Luereee, eight editions are known, but it is unlikely that these complete the list. Both poems are dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton, who was a liberal patron of men of letters and • particularly interested in the drama.
In the dedication of Venus and Adonis Shake speare calls the poem "the first heir of my inven tion," that is, the first product of his imagina tion. This does not prove that it was written before any of the plays, but may only mean that it was his first distinctively We/wry work, plays being then regarded as not included in literature properly so called. Some critics, how
ever, take the expression in its literal sense, believing that the poem was first written when the author was a very young man, perhaps even before he went to London. If Shakespeare did not become all author until 1590, the period of his literary apprenticeship covers at most five years, or until the end of 1591; and during this time he revised more or less thoroughly Titus An dronicus and the three parts of Henry VI., and wrote at least the seven original plays already enumerated and two long poems. And all this time he was actively engaged in his profession as an actor. The earliest definite notice of his appearance on the stage is of his playing in two comedies before Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace, in December, 1594. During the next six years (1595-1600) Shakespeare completed the series of English historical plays (not including Henry MI., his part in which was dune at least ten years later), and wrote most of his best comedies and Julius Ca'sar. All or nearly all the Sonnets are probably to be included in this period. King John is generally assigned to 1595, internal evi dence indicating that it immediately followed (if it did not precede) Richard II. The two parts of Henry IF. followed in 1596 or 1597, and Henry 1'. in 1598. The Jlerr•y Wines of Windsor, which tradition says was written at the request of Elizabeth, who desired to see Falstaff in love, appears to have come between 2 Henry /1'. and Henry The Merchant of Venice is mentioned in a list of Shakespeare's plays in Francis Aleres'4 Palladis Tamia, published in September, 1598; it was written probably in 1596 o• 1597. The same list includes all the plays mentioned above, except the trilogy of Henry l'I. It does not in clude The Taming of the Shrew (an adaptation of an anonymous play called The Taming of a Shrew, published in 1594), which in its present form cannot well have been later than 1597, and may be a year o• two earlier. Some good critics identify it with the Lore's Labour's Won, men tioned by Meres, which the majority believe to have been an early draft of All's Well that Ends Well. In the closing years of the century, be tween the slimmer of 159S and the end of 1600, Shakespeare, after finishing the English histor ical plays (except henry VIII.), returned to comedy, and wrote his three most brilliant works in that line. As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth .Vight. The order of their composition is uncertain, but Twelfth Night is almost unanimously reckoned the last of the series. Julius Ctesar is alluded to in Weever's Mirror of Martyrs (printed'in 1601, but written two years before) and other evidence leaves little doubt that the play was produced in 1599. It was very popular, and many allusions to it are found in the literature of the time, aceording to one of which it was far more successful than Bell Jonson's Roman plays, Catihine and & Janus.