ABSTRACT
After the tragedies Shakespeare, perhaps working in Stratford, seems to have discovered a new vein; and it is widely agreed that the Last Plays—the Romances, as they may with some accuracy be labelled—form a distinct group, being, in the words of Philip Edwards, ‘more closely related than any other group of Shakespeare's plays’. The dates of their composition are conjectural, but reasonably secure for all except the first: Pericles (1607), Cymbeline (1609), The Winter's Tale (1610), The Tempest (1611). Loosely associated with the group are Henry VIII (1613), which is more profitably treated with the other Chronicle plays; and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1612), said by the publisher of the first edition (1634) to be the work of Fletcher and Shakespeare. Whatever we may say of Shakespeare's part in it, The Two Noble Kinsmen is predominantly Fletcher's play, and our business is primarily with the first four works named above.
