Palladis Tamia

It is important in English literary history as the first critical account of the poems and early plays of William Shakespeare.

In the "Comparative Discourse" section Meres lists a dozen Shakespearean plays, identified by him as six comedies and six tragedies (Comedies: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, Love Labours Won, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Merchant of Venice; Tragedies: Richard II, Richard III, Henry the IV, King John, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet), establishing their composition before 1598.

However, there is no way of knowing how complete Meres' knowledge of the published plays actually was or whether he even intended to produce a comprehensive list of all the plays; at the very least, it is generally agreed that Meres neglected The Taming of the Shrew (1590–91), and all three parts of the Henry VI trilogy, which most scholars believe were written by 1591, seven years before Palladis Tamia.

The third volume was Wits Theater of the Little World (1599), dedicated to Bodenham and variously credited to him, Robert Allott, or Ling, and the fourth and last was, Palladis Palatium: wisedoms pallace.

Or The fourth part of Wits commonwealth (1604), with no author named but attributed to William Wrednott in the Stationer’s Register.