Chronology of Shakespeare’s Works

The dates of the writing of Shakespeare's plays that appear in the Timeline are taken from Oxford Reference on the website of Oxford University Press. Their chronology's introduction reads:

“It is particularly difficult to establish the dates of composition and the relative chronology of the early works, up to those named by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia of 1598. The following table is based on the ˜Canon and Chronology' section in William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery (1987), where more detailed information and discussion may be found.”

Other scholars assign different dates to some plays.