The play was registered at the Stationers’ Company on 4th August 1600. One of the first plays performed at the Globe.
First appears in the First Folio. It was probably typeset from the acting company’s prompt-book, or a copy.
‘Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.’
As You Like It, III ii
Brief synopsis of the play
Usurped by his brother Frederick, Duke Senior and his court are banished from the city. His daughter, Rosalind falls in love with Orlando, and is banished too. She disguises herself as a young man and – accompanied by her cousin Celia and jester Touchstone – seeks out her father in the Forest of Arden. There she meets Orlando again and (in disguise) counsels him in the art of love, in a reflective, eloquent and soulful comedy.
