Double Falsehood

The 21st century premiere of Shakespeare’s Double Falsehood.

Double Falsehood has been the subject of controversy for centuries. In February this year the play was published in an Arden Shakespeare edition thus reviving many of the arguments surrounding its authorship.

Although much of the work we have now comes from the 1727 production presented by Lewis Theobald it seems clear that the piece had its foundation in the lost play The History of Cardenio; a collaboration between William Shakespeare and John Fletcher first presented at court in 1613.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the play was largely ignored. Arden’s publication this year has sparked renewed interest in the work and made it one of the most exciting pieces of literature of the twenty-first century.