The Troublesome Reign of King John, second edition

The Troublesome Reign of King John was first published anonymously in 1591, but the second quarto of 1611 includes the attribution “Written by W.Sh.” In 1622, a third quarto expanded this to “W. Shakespeare.” The unusual amount of detail on the 1611 title page details the play’s performance by the Queen’s Majesty’s Players, and the play’s treatment of the discovery of King Richard’s illegitimate son and King John’s death.

The play is closely connected in story and structure to Shakespeare’s King John though with some notable differences, including expansion of the plot by monks to assassinate John. The most distinctive feature of all the editions is the text’s division into two parts. While the text is one of the longer of the period, it is well within the range of other single plays of the period, suggesting that the division is artificial, almost certainly in imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (Wiggins 2013, 458). 

The Troublesome Reign is the only play published in Shakespeare’s lifetime bearing his initials that Philip Chetwinde did not include in his additions to the Third Folio in 1664. The play has never been included in a complete works of Shakespeare and is even excluded from almost all editions of spurious plays, including C.F. Tucker Brooke (1908) and Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (2013). The play’s close relationship with Shakespeare’s King John means it is more often treated as a variant text or close source, similar to The Taming of a Shrew. Brian Vickers (2004) makes a persuasive case for George Peele as the play’s author, a case followed by Charles Forker in his 2011 Revels edition of The Troublesome Reign.