The Troublesome Reign of King John (ca. 1589) is an Elizabethan history play, generally accepted by scholars as the source and model that William Shakespeare employed for his own King John (ca. 1596). This article is in need of attention. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... The Life and Death of King John is one of the Shakespearean histories, plays written by William Shakespeare and based on the history of England. ...

The play was printed three times in quarto in Shakespeare's era: Quarto has several meanings: In bookbinding and publishing, quarto indicates the book size which results when four leaves of the book are created from a standard size sheet of paper. ...

Q1, 1591, was published by the stationer Sampson Clarke, with no attribution of authorship. The title page of Q1 states that the play was performed by Queen Elizabeth's Men. Although The Troublesome Reign is not an exceptionally long play, about 300 lines longer than Shakespeare's, the initial publication split the play into two parts. Queen Elizabeths Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre. ...

Q2, 1611, was published by John Helme (printed by Valentine Simmes); the authorship was assigned to "W. Sh." In this edition the artificial division in the first quarto was removed.

Q3, 1622, was published by Thomas Dewe (printed by Augustine Mathewes), as the work of "W. Shakespeare."

Some 19th-century critics accepted the 1622 attribution to Shakespeare; none do now. Candidates put forward for the author of The Troublesome Reign include Christopher Marlowe and George Peele, among others; no scholarly consensus has been achieved. An anonymous portrait in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, often believed to show Christopher Marlowe. ... George Peele (1558 - c. ...

References

• Geoffrey Bullough, ed., Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, Vol. 4, London/New York, Routledge and Kegan Paul/Columbia University Press, 1962.
• F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.