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Date and text

According to Dr. Samuel A. Tannenbaum, "scholars had been disputing for considerably more than half a century whether The Winter's Tale was one of Shakespeare's earliest plays or one of his latest."^[2] Charles Barrell assigned a latest date of 1594 [1], while many critics believe the play is one of Shakespeare's later works, possibly written in 1610 or 1611.^[3]

The play was not published until the First Folio of 1623. However, some researchers, including Charles Barrell and A.R. Cairncross, believe that a pirated version of the play was listed in the Stationers Register on May 22, 1594, under the title "a Wynters nightes pastime".[2]