Infrequently staged since the Restoration till quite recent times, the play is shown to have been very popular at the outset by the appearance of six Quartos between 1609 and 1635, and much other evidence. On their title-pages the first three Quartos declare it to have ‘been diuers and sundry times acted by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the Banck-side’. Moreover, of a new play we read in Pimlyco or Runne Red-cap, 1609:

and Ben Jonson's chagrined allusion in his Ode to Himselfe, 1629, after the failure of his play, The New Inn—

also witnesses to the success of the play.

Of actual performances of a Pericles we have four notices before 1642. The first is of one prior to Q I. At a trial in Venice of a Venetian ambassador mention was made by one witness of ‘a play called Pericles’ seen by Giorgio Giustinian, the ambassador to England from 5 January 1606 to 23 November 1608, and other foreign representatives. Secondly we learn that a group of country actors, fifteen in number, performed ‘Perocles, prince of Tire’ and ‘Kinge Lere’ at Candlemas (2 February), 1610 at Sir John York's mansion, Gowthwaite Hall in Nidderdale.