Cobbler of Queenheath, The

Anon. (1597)

Historical Records

Henslowe's Diary

F. 37 (Greg, I.69)

Lent vnto Robarte shawe the 23 of october 1597

to by a boocke for the company of my lorde admirals

men & my lord penbrockes the some of ………… xxxx^s

called the cobler ………… wittnes

E Alleyn

F. 43^v (Greg, I.82)

layd owt vnto Robarte shawe to by a boocke for the

companey the 21 of october 1597 the some of ………… xxxx^s

called the cobler………… wittnes………… E Alleyn

Henslowe's Inventory of Playbooks

A Note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3^d of March 1598 (Greg, Papers, 121)

Cobler quen hive.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Unknown.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Greg adds the duplicate entries in the diary (F. 37, F. 43^v) to the entry in Henslowe's inventory to get the title, "The Cobbler of Queenhithe" (II.188, item 116); he considers it "[p]robably an old play." He takes the spelling, "Queenhithe" from George Peele's Edward I. Harbage spells the word "Queenheath."

Knutson, following Chambers, classifies "The Cobbler" as a secondhand play (119, 160).

Gurr

Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Knutson, Roslyn L., "The Commercial Significance of the Payments for Playtexts in Henslowe's Diary, 1597-1603," Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 5 (1991): 117-63.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 9 October 2012.