Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/148



The known history of Love's Labour's Lost begins with the evidence found on the title-page of the earliest edition, 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. 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.

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),