INTRODUCTION.

LITERARY HISTORY.

This play was first printed in 1600 in Quarto, with the following title :

A | Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times pub | lickely acted, by the Right honoura | ble, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | Imprinted at London, for Thomas Fisher, and are to | be soulde at his shoppe, at the Signe of the White Hart, | in Fleetestreete. 1600.

In the same year another Quarto appeared, the title being:

A | Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times pub | likely acted, by the Right Honoura | ble, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | Printed by Iames Roberts, 1600.

The first Quarto was entered by Fisher on the Stationers' Register in October, 1600. Roberts' edition is not entered at Stationers' Hall; and, as it was followed by the editors of the first Folio, and contains more stage directions than Fisher's edition, it may probably have been a pirated reprint of Fisher's, made for the use of the players; for it is difficult to believe that Fisher's edition should have become so rare, before the first Folio was printed, that the editors were not able to avail themselves of it, had they wished to do so. The play is mentioned by Meres, in Palladis Tamia, so that it must have been acted before 1598.