Fletcher's canon presents unusual difficulties of attribution. He collaborated regularly and widely, most often with Beaumont and Massinger but also with Nathan Field, Shakespeare and others. Some of his early collaborations with Beaumont were later revised by Massinger, adding another layer of complexity to unravel. Fortunately for scholars and students of English literature, Fletcher also had highly distinctive mannerisms in his creative efforts; his texts reveal a range of peculiarities that effectively identify his presence. He frequently uses
ye instead of
you, at rates sometimes approaching 50%; he frequently employs
em for them, along with a set of other particular preferences in contractions; he adds a sixth stressed syllable to a standard pentameter verse line—most often sir but also too or still or next; he has various other specific habits and preferences. The detection of this pattern, this personal Fletcherian textual profile, has allowed researchers to penetrate the confusions of the Fletcher canon with good success—and has in turn encouraged the use of similar techniques more broadly in the study of literature. [See: stylometry.]Careful bibliography has established the authors of each play with some degree of certainty. Determination of the exact shares of each writer (for instance by Cyrus Hoy) in particular plays is ongoing, based on patterns of textual and linguistic preferences, stylistic grounds, and idiosyncrasies of spelling.
The list that follows gives a consensus verdict (at least a tentative one) on the authorship of the plays in Fletcher's canon, with likeliest dates of authorship, dates of first publication, and dates of licensing by the Master of the Revels, where available.
Solo Plays
- The Faithful Shepherdess, pastoral (written 1608–9; printed 1609?)
- Valentinian, tragedy (1610–14; 1647)
- Monsieur Thomas, comedy (c. 1610–16; 1639)
- The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, comedy (c. 1611?; 1647)
- Bonduca, tragedy (1611–14; 1647)
- The Chances, comedy (c. 1613–25; 1647)
- Wit Without Money, comedy (c. 1614; 1639)
- The Mad Lover, tragicomedy (acted January 5, 1617; 1647)
- The Loyal Subject, tragicomedy (licensed November 16, 1618; revised 1633?; 1647)
- The Humorous Lieutenant, tragicomedy (c. 1619; 1647)
- Women Pleased, tragicomedy (c. 1619–23; 1647)
- The Island Princess, tragicomedy (c. 1620; 1647)
- The Wild Goose Chase, comedy (c. 1621; 1652)
- The Pilgrim, comedy (c. 1621; 1647)
- A Wife for a Month, tragicomedy (licensed May 27, 1624; 1647)
- Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, comedy (licensed October 19, 1624; 1640)
Collaborations
With
Francis Beaumont:
- The Woman Hater, comedy (1606; 1607)
- Cupid's Revenge, tragedy (c. 1607–12; 1615)
- Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding, tragicomedy (c. 1609; 1620)
- The Maid's Tragedy, Tragedy (c. 1609; 1619)
- A King and No King, tragicomedy (1611; 1619)
- The Captain, comedy (c. 1609–12; 1647)
- The Scornful Lady, comedy (c. 1613; 1616)
- Love's Pilgrimage, tragicomedy (c. 1615–16; 1647)
- The Noble Gentleman, comedy (c. 1613?; licensed February 3, 1626; 1647)
With
Beaumont and
Massinger:
- Thierry and Theodoret, tragedy (c. 1607?; 1621)
- The Coxcomb, comedy (c. 1608–10; 1647)
- Beggars' Bush, comedy (c. 1612–13? revised 1622?; 1647)
- Love's Cure, comedy (c. 1612–13?; revised 1625?; 1647)
With
Massinger:
- Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, tragedy (August 1619; MS)
- The Little French Lawyer, comedy (c. 1619–23; 1647)
- A Very Woman, tragicomedy (c. 1619–22; licensed June 6, 1634; 1655)
- The Custom of the Country, comedy (c. 1619–23; 1647)
- The Double Marriage, tragedy (c. 1619–23; 1647)
- The False One, history (c. 1619-23; 1647)
- The Prophetess, tragicomedy (licensed May 14, 1622; 1647)
- The Sea Voyage, comedy (licensed June 22, 1622; 1647)
- The Spanish Curate, comedy (licensed October 24, 1622; 1647)
- The Lovers' Progress or The Wandering Lovers, tragicomedy (licensed December 6, 1623; revised 1634; 1647)
- The Elder Brother, comedy (c. 1625; 1637)
With
Massinger and
Field:
- The Honest Man's Fortune, tragicomedy (1613; 1647)
- The Queen of Corinth, tragicomedy (c. 1616–18; 1647)
- The Knight of Malta, tragicomedy (c. 1619; 1647)
With
Shakespeare:
- Henry VIII, history (c. 1613; 1623)
- The Two Noble Kinsmen, tragicomedy (c. 1613; 1634)
- Cardenio, tragicomedy? (c. 1613)
With
Middleton and
Rowley:
- Wit at Several Weapons, comedy (c. 1610–20; 1647)
With
Rowley:
- The Maid in the Mill (licensed August 29, 1623; 1647).
With
Field:
- Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One, morality (c. 1608–13; 1647)
With
Massinger,
Jonson, and
Chapman:
- Rollo Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, tragedy (c. 1617; revised 1627–30?; 1639)
With
Shirley:
- The Night Walker, or The Little Thief, comedy (c. 1611; 1640)
Uncertain:
- The Nice Valour, or The Passionate Madman, comedy (c. 1615–25; 1647)
- The Laws of Candy, tragicomedy (c. 1619–23; 1647)
- The Fair Maid of the Inn, comedy (licensed January 22, 1626; 1647)
- The Faithful Friends, tragicomedy (registered June 29, 1660; MS.)
The Nice Valour may be a play by Fletcher revised by Thomas Middleton;
The Fair Maid of the Inn is perhaps a play by Massinger, John Ford, and John Webster, either with or without Fletcher's involvement.
The Laws of Candy has been variously attributed to Fletcher and to John Ford.
The Night-Walker was a Fletcher original, with additions by Shirley for a 1639 production. And some of the attributions given above are disputed by some scholars, as noted in connection with
Four Plays in One. Rollo Duke of Normandy, an especially difficult case and a focus of much disagreement among scholars, may have been written around 1617, and later revised by Massinger.
The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 collected 35 plays, most of which that had not been previously published. The second folio of 1679 added 18 more, for a total of 53. The first folio included
The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn (1613), and the second
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), widely considered to be Beaumont's solo works.
One play in the canon,
Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, existed in manuscript and was not published till 1883. In 1640 James Shirley's
The Coronation was misattributed to Fletcher upon its initial publication, and was included in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679.