ABSTRACT
After his 1585 marriage in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare disappears from view
until 1592, when he emerges as a playwright in London. Two allusions in 1592 verify
his presence in the city, and both seemingly testify to Shakespeare’s prominence
as a popular playwright. In the first edition of Pierce Pennilesse, entered into the
Stationers’ Register on 8 August 1592 (Arber ii.619), Thomas Nashe comments on
the condition of the London stage:
Only one extant Elizabethan play-Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI-features Talbot,
although it is possible there may have been other Talbot plays by 1592. In the absence
of additional evidence, however, it is probable, though not certain, that Nashe was
referring to 1 Henry VI. If so, this means that by August 1592 Shakespeare had
written a phenomenally successful play seen by “ten thousand spectators at least
(at severall times).” It also means Shakespeare, or at least one of his plays, had
impressed one of the prominent writers and literary commentators of the day.2 Such
approval was not, however, universally the case.
