The 1609 Quarto, on which all later editions depend, has all the marks of a reported text, in so far as these can be recognized without a good text to act as check. The conditions of its publication confirm this view. ‘The booke of Pericles Prynce of Tyre’ was entered to Edward Blount on 20 May 1608, along with Antony and Cleopatra. After both entries the letter R is written and subsequently deleted. ‘The letter, which appears sporadically in this portion of the Register, presumably indicated that the fee had been duly received; whether its deletion implied the cancellation of the entrance is less certain, but comparison with certain other instances suggests that this was probably the case.’ Sir Edmund Chambers doubts whether the play entered was Shakespeare's, and suggests that ‘the old play had been revived, that it proved sufficiently popular in topic to justify a rewriting, and that Blount meant to print it, but desisted on learning that rewriting was contemplated’. I am not satisfied that there was an ‘old play’ that found its way to the stage, and Sir Edmund's theory seems unnecessarily complicated. It rests in part on his assumption that there is no room in Shakespeare's career for a Pericles in the season 1607–8, to which he assigns Coriolanus and Timon. An earlier date for Timon seems to me probable, and Pericles could easily be 1607–8 (if it was stimulated by the 1607 reprint of Twine's novel) or 1606–7 (if it was the occasion for that reprint).