SOURCE: Maxwell, J. C., ed. Introduction to The Life of Timon of Athens, by William Shakespeare, pp. ix-xlii. London: The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, 1957.

In the following essay, Maxwell discusses the date, sources, and structure of Timon of Athens.

Authenticity and Date

The Life of Tymon of Athens was first printed in the 1623 Folio, in the space in the Tragedies left by the temporary withdrawal of Troilus and Cressida.¹ It is at least possible that it was not originally intended to print it at all,² and the rough condition of the text has given rise to many speculations. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the blame was generally laid on actors, transcribers and printers,³ and Charles Knight in the Pictorial Shakespeare (1838) seems to have been the first to suggest the presence of a second hand other than that of a mere garbler. His view was...