APPENDIX C
The History of the Play
The known history of Love's Labour's Lost begins with the evidence found on the title-page of the earliest edition,[1] the Quarto of 1598. This reads: 'A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues labors lost. As it vvas presented before her Highnes this last Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented By W. Shakespere.' Her Highness was Queen Elizabeth and the Christmas performance alluded to probably took place during the season of December, 1597–January, 1598.[2] The statement that the play had been newly corrected and augmented is substantiated beyond all question by the text itself, particularly in the fourth and fifth acts.[3]
Love's Labour's Lost is the earliest of Shakespeare’s plays concerning which we have notice of a special performance at court and probably also the earliest to name Shakespeare as author on the printed title-page. It is mentioned in Meres' Palladis Tamia (1598),
- ↑ Mr. Pollard has argued that this Quarto was probably preceded by a piratical earlier edition of which no trace remains. The evidence is purely bibliographical and circumstantial, but carries weight.
- ↑ The Elizabethan year began with March 25. Hence if the Quarto was printed between January 1 and March 24, 'this last Christmas' would be Christmas, 1598, by our reckoning. Halliwell-Phillipps (Furness, p. 336) suggested a connection of the performance of the play with a recorded payment in December, 1597, 'for altering and making readie of soundrie chambers at Whitehall against Christmas, and for the plaies, and for making readie in the hall for her Maiestie.' Shakespeare's company acted at court on December 26 of both years, 1597 and 1598, and also on the following January 1 (1598 and 1599).
- ↑ See notes on IV. iii, 299–304 and V. ii. 825–830.
