When was Romeo and Juliet written by Shakespeare?
Romeo and Juliet
It is unknown when exactly Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Juliet's nurse refers to an earthquake she says occurred 11 years ago.[25] This may refer to the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580, which would date that particular line to 1591. Other earthquakes—both in England and in Verona—have been proposed in support of the different dates.[26] But the play's stylistic similarities with A Midsummer Night's Dream and other plays conventionally dated around 1594–95, place its composition sometime between 1591 and 1595.[27][lower-alpha 1] One conjecture is that Shakespeare may have begun a draft in 1591, which he completed in 1595.[28]
John Smethwick
A few Shakespearean plays continued to be printed in quarto editions after 1623 — and Smethwick was responsible for several of these late quartos. He issued the second quarto of "Love's labor's Lost" in 1631. He published the undated Q4 of "Romeo and Juliet" (1623?), and followed it with Q5 in 1637. In the same era he issued the undated Q4 of "Hamlet" (1625?) and the Q5 of 1637.