Mucedorus

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Mucedorus is an Elizabethan play at one time claimed to be a work of Shakespeare. It is a romantic comedy about the titular character, prince of Valentia, who rescues the princess Amadine from a bear and eventually marries her. The bear was frequently played by an actual bear—something that, perhaps, contributed to the play's popularity.

That popularity is demonstrated by the fact that Mucedorus was the most frequently reprinted play of its era; W. W. Greg totalled 17 quarto texts. They are: Q1—1598; Q2—1606; Q3—1610; Q4—1611; Q5—1613; Q6—1615; Q7—1618; Q8—1619; Q9—1621; Q10—1626; Q11—1631; Q12—1634; Q13—1639; Q14—1663; Q15—1668; and two that are undated or undatable (Q16, Q17).

On the title page of Q3 (1610) of Mucedorus is a claim that it was in the repertoire of the Globe Theatre. Starting with this same Q3 and continuing through all subsequent editions, the text of the play is augmented with additional scenes, which are plainly not the work of the original author.

The play was assigned to Shakespeare in Edward Archer's play list of 1656; it was also bound together with Fair Em and The Merry Devil of Edmonton in a book labelled "Shakepseare. Vol. I" in the library of Charles II.

Mucedorus was enormously popular play in its time, and was performed by strolling players as recently as the eighteenth century.

[edit] References

William Kozlenko, ed., Disputed Plays of William Shakespeare, Hawthorn Books, 1974.
C. F. Tucker Brooke, ed., The Shakespeare Apocrypha, Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1908.