The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare

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King John

King John
Perhaps the most modern in sensibility of all the history plays despite being set furthest in the past, King John was probably written between Richard II and 1 Henry IV (with both of which, particularly the former, it shares some rare vocabulary), in 1596.

Text

The play was first printed in the Folio in 1623, apparently from a scribal transcript of foul papers: the removal of profanities and the use of act divisions suggests that this manuscript was prepared for a projected revival after the Act to Restrain the Abuses of Players and after the King's Men acquired the Blackfriars theatre, although no such revival is recorded.

Sources

The play is closely related to an anonymous two-part play, The Troublesome Reign of King John, published in 1591, which is itself based on Holinshed and on John Foxe's Book of Martyrs: although this play was attributed to Shakespeare in its 1611 and 1623 reprints, most...

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