Publicity poster for the 2002 Los Angeles production of The Second Maiden's Tragedy as Cardenio.

The History of Cardenio is a lost play, known to have been performed by the King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. It was attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in 1653 in a Stationers' Registry entry by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley, who was known to have falsely used Shakespeare's name in other such entries and, indeed, in another part of the same entry. Image File history File links Cardenio. ... Image File history File links Cardenio. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... A lost work is a document or literary work produced some time in the past of which no surviving copies are known to exist. ... It has been suggested that Lord Chamberlains Men be merged into this article or section. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... John Fletcher (1579-1625) was a Jacobean playwright. ... Humphrey Moseley (d. ...

The content of the play is not known, but it is likely based on incidents involving the character Cardenio in Don Quixote, of which the 1612 translation by Thomas Shelton would have been available to the authors. Fletcher based several of his later plays on the work of Miguel de Cervantes. This article is about the fictional character and novel. ... Thomas Shelton (fl. ... Cervantes redirects here. ...

Lewis Theobald and Double Falshood

In 1727, Lewis Theobald claimed to have obtained three Restoration-era manuscripts of an unnamed play by Shakespeare, which he edited, "improved", and released under the name Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers. A prior version of this page said that Theobald was unable to publish the original script, because of Jacob Tonson's exclusive copyright on Shakespeare's plays. But that contention does not hold up, as the Tonson copyright applied only to the plays he had already published, not to any newly discovered play by Shakespeare; and Theobald edited an edition of the complete works for Tonson, whose commercial interests would have been substantially bettered if he had been able to advertise the edition as containing a hitherto "lost" play. (A prior instance of commercially "enhancing" an edition of Shakespeare's plays by adding new ones was the second reprint of the Third Folio of 1664, which added seven plays, only one of which (Pericles) has been accepted as at least partly by Shakespeare.) The Double Falshood story has the plot of the "Cardenio" episode in Don Quixote, and present scholarly opinion is that Theobald may indeed have used the lost Cardenio as his original, but he might have suspected that the work was wholly or partly by John Fletcher even though he was presumably ignorant of the co-authorship attribution in Moseley's Stationers' Registry entry. (For a thorough discussion of scholarship to date see G.H.Metz, Sources of Four Plays Ascribed to Shakespeare 257-83 [U.Mo.Press 1989]) The fate of Theobald's three alleged manuscripts is unknown. The very existence of three genuine MSS of that age is problematical, and Theobald was said to have invited interested persons to view the alleged MSS, but he then avoided actually displaying them. These facts have led many scholars to conclude that Theobald's play was a hoax written by himself. However, more recent stylometric analysis leads to the conclusion that Double Falsehood was based on one or more manuscripts written in part by Fletcher and in part by another playwright. The open question is whether that second playwright was Shakespeare. The text contains no more than two or three passages which appear good enough to be even tentatively attributed to the Bard, but it is possible that Theobald so heavily edited the text that Shakespeare's style was entirely submerged. In the late period represented by Shakepeare's known collaborations with Fletcher in Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen his style had become so involved that it is difficult for an auditor or even a reader to catch the meanings of many passages on a quick hearing or a first read, so Theobald might have found it necessary to alter the text in a way that made Shakespeare's voice unrecognizable. Lewis Theobald (1688 - 1744), British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire. ... Double Falshood (sometimes erroneously listed as The Double Falshood) is a play by Lewis Theobald, first produced on December 13, 1727 at the Drury Lane Theatre and published in 1728, which he claimed to have based on three manuscripts dating from the time of the English Restoration of an unnamed... Jacob Tonson, 18th-century British publisher best known for having obtained a copyright on the plays of William Shakespeare by buying up the rights of the heirs of the publisher of the Fourth Folio after the Statute of Anne went into effect. ... Title page of the 1611 quarto edition of the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a play written (at least in part) by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected plays despite some questions over its authorship. ... Dame Ellen Terry as Katherine of Aragon The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth was one of the last plays written by the English playwright William Shakespeare, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. ... The Two Noble Kinsmen is a play written in 1613 by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare in collaboration. ...

Charles Hamilton and The Second Maiden's Tragedy

In 1990, Charles Hamilton, a handwriting expert, after seeing a 1611 manuscript known as The Second Maiden's Tragedy, usually attributed to Thomas Middleton, identified it as a text of the missing Cardenio in which the characters' names had been changed. This attribution is not generally accepted by experts on Shakespeare [1]. In fact, the principal plot in this play bears no resemblance to the Cardenio tale in Don Quixote; but the subplot dramatizes another tale interpolated in the Cardenio episode of Don Quixote (Chs. XXXIII-XXXV) and it employs some of the imagery from that novella. The Second Maiden’s Tragedy is a poor play, not up to the worst of Shakespeare’s early output. It is a gory Senecan tragedy. In Act III the heroine happily commits suicide to prevent her abduction, and her lover gleefully murders a minor character. Then, in V.i, there are five killings within the space of twenty-five lines. This article is about the year. ... The Second Maidens Tragedy is a Jacobean play that survives only in manuscript. ... Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. ... This article is about the fictional character and novel. ...

Several theatre companies have capitalized on Hamilton's attribution by performing The Second Maiden's Tragedy under the name of Shakespeare's Cardenio, ignoring its disputed status. For instance, a production at Oxford's Burton Taylor Theatre in March, 2004, claimed to have been the first performance of the play in England since its putative recovery (although a successful amateur production had premiered at Essex University's Lakeside Theatre on October 15, 1998). This production was a huge commercial and critical success and the company behind it were offered a large sum (which they turned down) to transfer the production to London's West End. A laboratory performance of the play was given on March 17, 1996 at the Linhart Theatre in New York. Hamilton (who was 82 years old at the time) made a presentation after the performance in which he asserted (contrary to his book) that he did not ascribe this play to Shakespeare based on paleographic evidence, but, rather, because he regarded it as a "Romance," which Shakespeare had turned to at the end of his career. A full production of the play was mounted at the Next Theatre in Evanston Illinois in 1998. The production noted the contested authorship and was critically well received. This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... The Burton Taylor Theatre (The BT) is a 50-seater studio theatre situated on Gloucester Street in Oxford, United Kingdom near its parent organisation The Oxford Playhouse. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Introduction The University of Essex is a Campus university based at Wivenhoe Park on the outskirts of Colchester (the oldest recorded town in Britain) in the English county of Essex, less than a mile from the town of Wivenhoe. ...

Arguably the most prominent American staging of The Second Maiden's Tragedy as Cardenio to date — the acclaimed [2] 2002 Los Angeles production starring film and television actors Megan Henning and Travis Schuldt — was advertised as "Shakespeare's" play, although the programme note by director James Kerwin acknowledged — and discussed in detail — the play's controversial history. Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... Megan Henning (born September 13, 1978 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actress. ... Travis Schuldt (18 September 1974) is an American actor. ... James Kerwin (born October 13, 1973 in St. ...

Cardenio in popular culture

"The History of Cardenio" features as the centre of literary mystery novels like "Lost in a Good Book," the second installation of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde (Penguin: 2004), and "The Shakespeare Secret"/"Interred with Their Bones" by Jennifer Lee Carrell (Dutton Adult: 2007). Lost in a Good Book is the second book by Jasper Fforde and the sequel to the adventures of literary detective Thursday Next in The Eyre Affair. ... Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is an English novelist. ...

In their BBC radio show on Shakespeare's histories, the Reduced Shakespeare Company suggests that Cardenio is a "children's play about the legend of King Arthur", and performs a short sketch based on this idea. (RSC Radio Show: The Histories, 1994)^{[citation needed]} For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... Radio broadcasts have been a popular entertainment since the 1910s, though popularity has declined a little in some countries since television became widespread. ... The Reduced Shakespeare Company is a company of actors that performs unsubtle, fast-paced, seemingly highly-improvisational comedies presenting ludicrously condensed versions of huge topics. ... For other uses, see King Arthur (disambiguation). ...

Shakespeare Scholar Stephen Greenblatt and playwright Charles L. Mee collaborated on a contemporary reimagining of Cardenio. This production, directed by Les Waters, premiered at the American Repertory Theatre on May 8, 2008. Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born November 7, 1943) is a literary critic, theorist and scholar. ... Charles L. Mee is an American playwright and author. ... The American Repertory Theatre (or A.R.T.) is housed in the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

External Links

• http://www.amrep.org/cardenio Cardenio production page at the American Repertory Theatre

	William Shakespeare and his works
General information	Biography · Style · Influence · Reputation · Religion · Sexuality · Shakespeare authorship question
Tragedies	Antony and Cleopatra · Coriolanus · Cymbeline · Hamlet · Julius Caesar · King Lear · Macbeth · Othello · Romeo and Juliet · Timon of Athens · Titus Andronicus · Troilus and Cressida
Comedies	All's Well That Ends Well · As You Like It · The Comedy of Errors · Love's Labour's Lost · Measure for Measure · The Merchant of Venice · The Merry Wives of Windsor · A Midsummer Night's Dream · Much Ado About Nothing · Pericles, Prince of Tyre · The Taming of the Shrew · The Tempest · Twelfth Night · The Two Gentlemen of Verona · The Two Noble Kinsmen · The Winter's Tale
Histories	King John · Richard II · Henry IV, Part 1 · Henry IV, Part 2 · Henry V · Henry VI, part 1 · Henry VI, part 2 · Henry VI, part 3 · Richard III · Henry VIII
Poems	Sonnets · Venus and Adonis · The Rape of Lucrece · The Passionate Pilgrim · The Phoenix and the Turtle · A Lover's Complaint
Apocrypha and lost plays	Edward III · Sir Thomas More · Cardenio (lost) · Love's Labour's Won (lost) · The Birth of Merlin · Locrine · The London Prodigal · The Puritan · The Second Maiden's Tragedy · Richard II, Part I: Thomas of Woodstock · Sir John Oldcastle · Thomas Lord Cromwell · A Yorkshire Tragedy · Fair Em · Mucedorus · The Merry Devil of Edmonton · Arden of Faversham · Edmund Ironside · Vortigern and Rowena
Other play information	Shakespeare's plays · Shakespeare in performance · Chronology of Shakespeare plays · Oxfordian chronology · Shakespeare on screen · BBC Television Shakespeare · Titles based on Shakespeare · Lists of characters A–K, L–Z · Problem plays · List of historical characters · Ghost characters