The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Sixty-Six Pickleherring's list of the world's lost plays

There are several lost plays in this careless world. Some went down to Cromwell, some were eaten by rats. Here, I will provide you with my list of them:

The Biter Bit

The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl

Rhodon and Iris

Queen Dido

All and Everything

The Bride Stript Bare

The Birth of Merlin

Whistle Binkie

Amends for Ladies

The Bride's Maids Spankt

Cardenio

Every Man Erect

Fair Em

All to Bed

The Way Things Happen

A Knot of Fools

The Tragedy of Gowrie

When a Man's Single

Dogs, a Masque with Music

The Chemical Wedding

Love Lies Bleeding

Ninus and Semiramis

The Elder Brother

The Passionate Shepherdess

Perkin Warbeck

The Twins' Tragedy

Right You Are (If You Think You Are)

Topcliffe, his Boots: or The Parsing of the Papist

Mr Poe

Udolpho

Two Lovers Killed By Lightning

The Incompetent Hawk, or In Two Fell Swoops

Arden of Faversham

Locrine

The Devil's Jig

Dramatic Eternity: Scene 666

Of these lost plays, only Cardenio was by William Shakespeare (writing in collaboration with Mr John Fletcher). We presented it at Whitehall, before the Duke of Savoy, quite late in Mr Shakespeare's lifetime, but that's all I can recall of the wretched thing. The player Thomas Betterton may have a copy of it, as he claims he has, in the handwriting of Mr Downes, the famous prompter. If so, why he has never yet ushered it into the world, I do not know. There is a tradition (which I will merely mention) that Mr Shakespeare gave the script of this play, as a present of value, to a natural daughter of his, for whose sake he wrote it, at the time of his retirement from the stage. I can only say that this daughter was not known to your humble servant.

Mr Betterton is in the habit of talking about three other plays which he claims were the work of Mr Shakespeare, namely:

The History of King Stephen

Duke Humphrey, a Tragedy

Iphis and Iantha, or A Marriage Without a Man, a Comedy

Frankly, I never heard of any of them, and Betterton's story that they perished when Mrs Shakespeare 'unluckily burnt 'em by putting 'em under pie bottoms' speaks (in my opinion) for itself.

Love's Labour's Won, though, is a different matter.