Dating Shakespeare's Plays:
A Critical Review of the Evidence

Editor: Kevin Gilvary

This critical review challenges the orthodox scholarly consensus about the order in which Shakespeare composed his plays and when they were written. It reveals surprising discrepancies in date comparisions. King John has been placed by scholars in every year of the decade up to 1598 and there are suggestions that Hamlet's date of 1602, could be as early as 1589.

In this authorative book, evidence is reviewed methodically to produce a range of dates supported by in-depth analysis of aids to dating such as language, historical allusion the testimony of title pages as well as works by other authors including Palladis Tamia and the Stationers' Register.

In considering Oxfordian dates, the intention is not to prove the Earl of Oxford authorship but the possibility of a range of earlier dates for each of the 36 plays in the First Folio, and four other plays which have been attributed to Shakespeare.

Kevin Gilvary gained a BA and MA from the University of Southampton and is currently a research student at Brunel University. He has taught in Canada and South America, as well as Hampshire.

"The book is a major comprehensive revision and re-envisioning of the Shakespeare chronology, but it does not set up a rigid chronology of its own. The new chronology is refreshingly diverse, like the world of Shakespeare authorship studies. ...

In bringing together all of the Oxfordian scholarship on the chronology for the first time, though the only alternative dates it includes are Oxfordian, Dating Shakespeare's Plays is not dismissive of rival positions, and if anything it is polite and respectful to the orthodox. ...

So, regardless of one's position on the authorship question, Dating Shakespeare's Plays is a most informative and useful book on a subject at the center of the Shakespeare labyrinth. It is not the last word, but rather an advantageous starting point. A historical review of scholarship organized as a reference work, it does not interpret or try to persuade readers that any proposed date is absolute, but systematically presents what scholars have projected, lets readers consider the possibilities, and raises important questions.

There is a great deal packed into each of the play chapters in the 508 pages of Dating Shakespeare's Plays..."

From a review by William S. Niederkorn in The Brooklyn Rail