Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1860), A. Brandl (1898), 359, J. S. Farmer (1907, 1909, T. F. T.). The characters, other than Darius and Zorobabell, are mainly abstract, and include Iniquitie, 'the Vyce'. There is a Prolocutor. The Dead Mans Fortune > 1591
[MS.] Add. MS. 10449. 'The plotte of the deade mans fortune.' [Probably from Dulwich.] The text is given by Steevens, Variorum (1803), iii. 414; Boswell, Variorum (1821), iii. 356; Greg, Henslowe Papers, 133; and a facsimile by Halliwell, The Theatre Plats of Three Old English Dramas (1860). The names of actors who took part in the play point to a performance by the Admiral's, about 1590-1 (cf. ch. xiii). The Reign of King Edward the Third > 1595
S. R. 1595, Dec. 1. 'A book Intitled Edward the Third and the Blacke Prince their warres with kinge John of Fraunce.' Burby (Arber, iii. 55). 1596. The Raigne of King Edward the third: As it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London. For Cuthbert Burby.
1599. Simon Stafford for Cuthbert Burby.
Editions with Shakespeare Apocrypha, and by E. Capel (1759-60, Prolusiones), F. J. Furnivall (1877, Leopold Sh.), J. P. Collier (1878, Shakespeare), G. C. Moore Smith (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).—Dissertations: H. von Friesen, Ed. iii, angeblich ein Stück von Sh. (1867, Jahrbuch, ii. 64); J. P. Collier, K. Edw. III, a Historical Play by W. Sh. (1874); A. Teetgen, Sh's. K. Edw. iii, absurdly called, and scandalously treated, as a 'Doubtful Play': an Indignation Pamphlet (1875); A. C. Swinburne, On the Historical Play of K. Edw. iii (1879, Gent. Mag., 1880, &c., Study of Sh.); G. von Vincke, K. Edw. iii, ein Bühnenstück? (1879, Jahrbuch, xiv. 304); E. Phipson, Ed. iii (1889, N. S. S. Trans. 58*); G. Liebau, K. Ed. iii von England und die Gräfin von Salisbury (1900, 1901), K. Ed. iii von England im Lichte europäischer Poesie (1901); R. M. Smith, Edw. III (1911, J. G. P. x. 90).
The authorship was first ascribed to Shakespeare (with that of Edw. IV and Edw. II!) in Rogers and Ley's play-list of 1656 (Greg, Masques, lxiv). The theory was advocated by Capell, and has received much support, largely owing to the assent of Tennyson, against whose authority, however, may be set that of Swinburne. In its latest and not altogether unplausible form, Shakespeare is regarded as the author, not of the whole play, but of i. 2 and ii, which deal with the episode of the wooing of Lady Salisbury by the king, and are possibly, although by no means certainly, due to another hand than that of the chronicle narrative, to which they are only slightly linked. The style of these scenes is not demonstrably un-Shakespearian, and they, and in less degree the play as a whole, contain many parallels with Hen. V and
