Romeo and Juliet First Performed

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet between approximately 1594 and 1596, adapting the story from Arthur Brooke's 1562 narrative poem, itself drawn from Italian sources. The play was first published in 1597 as an unauthorized quarto, whose title page noted it had been often played publicly by the Lord Chamberlain's Men in London. A longer, authorized quarto followed in 1599. The five-act tragedy depicts two young lovers from feuding Verona families whose deaths reconcile the rival households.