S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer of Edgar's share to John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 521).
1648. . . . As it hath beene Acted by his Majesties Servants with great Applause. Written by John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley.
1649. The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier. A Comedy . . .
Written by Francis Beamont and John Fletcher. Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue. Prologue in verse, said by Fleay, i. 177, to be Davenant's, and Epilogue, used also for The Noble Gentleman.] Fleay, i. 177, and Gayley, 73, put the date in the spring of 1607, finding a reference in 'a favourite on the sudden' (I. iii) to the success of Robert Carr in taking the fancy of James at the tilt of 24 March 1607, to which Fleay adds that 'another inundation' (III. i) recalls a flood of 20 Jan. 1607. Neither argument is convincing, and it is not known that the Paul's boys went on into 1607; they are last heard of in July 1606. The prologue expresses the author's intention not to lose his ears, perhaps an allusion to Jonson's and Chapman's peril after Eastward Ho! in 1605. Gayley notes in II. iii what certainly looks like a reminiscence of Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xiv. 51 and xv. 87, but it is no easier to be precise about the date of Antony and Cleopatra than about that of The Woman Hater. The play is universally regarded as substantially Beaumont's and the original prologue only speaks of a single author, but Davenant in 1649 evidently supposed it to be Fletcher's, saying 'full twenty yeares, he wore the bayes'. Boyle, Oliphant, Alden, and Gayley suggest among them III. i, ii; IV. ii; V. i, ii, v as scenes to which Fletcher or some other collaborator may have given touches.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 1607
1613. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. For Walter Burre. [Epistle to Robert Keysar, signed 'W. B.', Induction with Prologue, Epilogue.]
1635. . . . Full of Mirth and Delight. Written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher, Gent. As it is now Acted by Her Maiesties Servants at the Private house in Drury Lane. N. O. for I. S. [Epistle to Readers, Prologue (from Lyly's Sapho and Phaon).]
1635. . . . Francis Beamont. . . .
Editions by F. W. Moorman (1898, T. D.), H. S. Murch (1908, Yale Studies, xxxiii), R. M. Alden (1910, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: R. Boyle, B. and F.'s K. B. P. (1889, E. S. xiii. 156); B. Leonhardt, Ueber B. und F.'s K. B. P. (1885, Annaberg programme), Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.'s K. B. P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 509).
The Epistle tells us that the play was 'in eight daies . . . begot and borne', 'exposed to the wide world, who . . . utterly reiected it', preserved by Keysar and sent to Burre, who had 'fostred it priuately in my bosome these two yeares'. The play 'hopes his father will beget him a yonger brother'. Burre adds, 'Perhaps it will be thought to bee of the race of Don Quixote: we both may confidently sweare, it is his elder aboue a yeare'. The references to the actors in the induction as boys and the known connexion of Keysar with the Queen's
