Giles, John, and Will: The Fletchers and Shakespeare in Bishopsgate Street, London, 1596

John Fletcher and William Shakespeare collaborated on three plays (Cardenio, All Is True; or King Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen) from around summer 1612 to late autumn 1613. Much ink has been spilled over whether the two men collaborated remotely or in proximity, over the apportioning of scenes to each of them, over whether it is more fitting to classify the collaborative plays as late Shakespeare or as (relatively) early Fletcher, over the texts’ coherence and inconsistencies, and so on. Little attention, however, has been devoted to the question of when and how Fletcher and Shakespeare may have met for the first time. Through the combination of different pieces of archival evidence that have never been examined together, this essay argues that Fletcher and Shakespeare may have met long before Fletcher even began his theatrical career in 1606, and it puts forward 1596 as the date of their first meeting, the year Fletcher’s father Richard died and his uncle Giles and his future collaborator Shakespeare were living very close to each other in Bishopsgate Street, London.