Dissertation: A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious Impertinent in English Dramatic Literature (1902, M. L. N. xvii. 179).
The play was given at Court by the Queen’s Revels on 2 or 3 Nov. 1612. It passed, doubtless, through the Lady Elizabeth’s, to whom the actor-list probably belongs, to the King’s, who took it to Court on 5 March 1622 (Murray, ii. 193) and again on 17 Nov. 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). There was thus more than one opportunity for the prologue, which speaks of the play as having a mixed reception at first, partly because of its length, then ‘long forgot’, and now revived and shortened. The original date may be between the issue in 1608 of Baudouin’s French translation of The Curious Impertinent from Don Quixote, which in original or translation suggested its plot, and Jonson’s Alchemist (1610), IV. vii. 39, ‘You are ... a Don Quixote. Or a Knight o’ the curious coxcombe’. The prologue refers to ‘makers’, and there is fair agreement in giving some or all of I. iv, vi, II. iv, III. iii, and V. ii to Beaumont and the rest to Fletcher. Fleay, Boyle, Oliphant, and Gayley think that there has been revision by a later writer, perhaps Massinger or W. Rowley.
The Maid’s Tragedy > 1611
S. R. 1619, April 28 (Buck). ‘A play Called The maides tragedy.’ Higgenbotham and Constable (Arber, iii. 647).
1619. The Maides Tragedy. As it hath beene divers times Acted at the Blacke-friers by the King’s Maiesties Seruants. For Francis Constable.
1622.... Newly perused, augmented, and inlarged, This second Impression. For Francis Constable.
1630.... Written by Francis Beaumont, and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. The Third Impression, Reuised and Refined. A. M. for Richard Hawkins.
1638; 1641; 1650 [1660?]; 1661.
Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten in B. und F.’s M. T. (1900, Anglia, xxiii. 14).
The play must have been known by 31 Oct. 1611 when Buck named the Second Maiden’s Tragedy (q.v.) after it, and it was given at Court during 1612–13. An inferior limit is not attainable and any date within c. 1608–11 is possible. Gayley, 349, asks us to accept the play as more mature than, and therefore later than, Philaster. Fleay, i. 192, thinks that the mask in I. ii was added after the floods in the winter of 1612, but you cannot bring Neptune into a mask without mention of floods. As to authorship there is some division of opinion, especially on II. ii and IV. iii; subject thereto, a balance of opinion gives I, II, III, IV. ii, iv and V. iv to Beaumont, and only IV. i and V. i, ii, iii to Fletcher.