The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare composed his definitive version of what is often called ‘the greatest love story ever told’ during the lyrical period of his career which also produced Richard II and A Midsummer Night's Dream, probably in the same year as these two plays, 1595. The play first appeared in print in 1597, in an unlicensed quarto edition apparently produced from a reported text assembled by actors who had played Romeo and Paris. The title page proclaims that Romeo and Juliet has ‘been often (with great applause) played publicly, by the Right Honourable Lord Hunsdon his servants’: since Shakespeare's company was renamed the Lord Chamberlain's Men as of 17 March 1597, this edition must have gone to press before then. Furthermore, the work of producing it was interrupted by the seizure of its original printer's presses, an event which took place between 9 February and 27 March 1597, by which time the first four sheets had...
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