The World and the Child

The World and the Child is an anonymous English morality play. Its source is a late 14th-century or 15th-century poem The Mirror of the Periods of Man's Life, from which the play borrows significantly while reducing the number of characters. It is thought to have influenced William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1.

Date

The earliest surviving edition is dated 17 July 1522, although the play is believed to have been written earlier than that and to have circulated in manuscript form. A bookseller in Oxford records the sale of "mundus a play" in 1520. T. W. Craik suggests a date of 1508 while MacCracken offers sometime in the late 15th century.