[MR] A Lost Shakespeare Play?

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Yesterday I stumbled across an interesting BBC piece about a possible lost
Shakespeare play, "Love's Labor's Won". If this sounds familiar, it is
because it might be a sequel to the well-known LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Or it
might not be, and only pinged off the earlier play's title. Or it might not
have existed at all.

The main clue to the play's existence is an ancient list of plays that was
found incorporated into the binding of another book. It was not uncommon to
re-use whatever paper or parchment at hand to make the hand-bound binding
layers in books during the 16th and 17th centuries.

No Shakespeare work entitled "Love's Labour's Won" is known in the
Shakespeare canon, but it is not the only play associated with the bard
that has disappeared. A piece called "Cardinio", thought to be John
Fletcher and Shakespeare's parroting from Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, is known
to have been performed at least twice in 1613 by royal command. And then
there is TITUS ANDRONICUS, whose only known copy of the original 1594
script surfaced in 1904.

The very interesting story is at
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231107-the-420-year-search-for-shakespeares-lost-play
.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep Merry Rose relevant and in business.