Fleay, i. 198, Oliphant, and Thorndike, 70, accumulate inconclusive evidence bearing on the date, of which the most that can be said is that an answer to The Taming of the Shrew would have more point the nearer it came to the date of the original, and that the references to the siege of Ostend in I. iii would be topical during or not long after that siege, which ended on 8 Sept. 1604. On the other hand, Gayley (R. E. C. iii, lxvi) calls attention to possible reminiscences of Epicoene (1609) and Alchemist (1610). I see no justification for supposing that a play written in 1605 would undergo revision, as has been suggested, in 1610–14. A revival by the King’s in 1633 got them into some trouble with Sir Henry Herbert, who claimed the right to purge even an old play of ‘oaths, prophaness, and ribaldrye’ (Variorum, iii. 208). Possibly the play is also The Woman is too Hard for Him, which the King’s took to Court on 26 Nov. 1621 (Murray, ii. 193). But the original writing was not necessarily for this company. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher alone.
Philaster > 1610
S. R. 1620, Jan. 10 (Taverner). ‘A Play Called Philaster.’ Thomas Walkley (Arber, iii. 662).
1620. Phylaster, Or Loue lyes a Bleeding. Acted at the Globe by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by Francis Baymont and Iohn Fletcher. Gent. For Thomas Walkley.
1622.... As it hath beene diuerse times Acted, at the Globe, and Blacke-friers, by his Maiesties Seruants.... The Second Impression, corrected, and amended. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to the Reader by Walkley. Different text of I. i; V. iv, v.]
1628. A. M. for Richard Hawkins. [Epistle by the Stationer to the Understanding Gentry.]
1634; 1639; 1652; N.D. [1663]; 1687.
Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), F. S. Boas (1898, T. D.), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Über die Beziehungen von B. und F.’s P. zu Shakespeare’s Hamlet und Cymbeline (1885, Anglia, viii. 424) and Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 34).
The play is apparently referred to in John Davies of Hereford, Scourge of Folly (S. R. 8 Oct. 1610), ep. 206:
To the well deseruing M^r John Fletcher.