INTRODUCTION

LITERARY HISTORY

This play was first printed in the year 1600. There is an entry in the Stationers’ Register, under date August 4, without any year given, to the effect that As You Like It, Henry V., Every Man in his Humour, and Much Ado are “To be staled.” It is evident that this entry belongs to the year 1600, as it follows that dated May 27, 1600, which entry makes mention of “My Lord Chamberlens mens plaies.” A subsequent entry, dated August 23rd, 1600, headed “And. Wise Wm. Aspley” is to register two books, the one called “Muche Adoe about Nothinge,” and the other the Second Part of the “History of King Henrie the iiiith, with the Humors of Sir John Fallstaffe: wrytten by Mr. Shakespeare.” Later on, in the same year, the first and only Quarto edition known of this play was printed with the following title-page: “Much Adoe about Nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his Servants. Written by William Shakespeare. Printed by V. J. [V. Simmes?] for Andrew Wise and William Aspley, 1600.” It is a curious fact that we should have only one Q. edition of this play, which evidently, from the frequent allusions to it in contemporary writers, was a very popular one. It appears that when Andrew Wise assigned his copyrights, June 27th, 1603, “to Mathew Law,” Aspley retained Much Ado and II. Henry IV., which were not, apparently, printed till the publication of the First Folio in 1623, of which Aspley was one of the publishers.