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Shakespeare's plays in historical order |
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We cannot be certain of the exact chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, as there is no record of the first production date of any of his works. But by careful detective work and a few guestimates, scholars and academics have arrived at a fairly close idea of their historical order.
The following sources of information were used to arrive at the final list:
- several historical events and allusions to those events in the plays
- the records of performances of the plays -- taken from such places as Henslowe's diary and the diaries of other Shakespeare contemporaries like John Manningham (a student at the Inns of Court), and Thomas Platter (a Swiss businessman)
- the publication dates of sources
- the dates that the plays appear in print (remembering that the production of a play immediately followed the completion of that play in the Elizabethan age).
However, even though a generally accepted order exists, there are many who continue to with the order of plays listed below.
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