In 1632 Blount published
Six Court Comedies, the first printed collection of Lyly's plays. They appear in the text in the following order; the parenthetical date indicates the year they appeared separately in quarto form:
- Endymion (1591)
- Campaspe (1584)
- Sapho and Phao (1584)
- Gallathea (1592)
- Midas (1592)
- Mother Bombie (1594)
Lyly's other plays include
Love's Metamorphosis (though printed in 1601, possibly Lyly's earliest play — the surviving version is likely a revision of the original), and
The Woman in the Moon, first printed in 1597. Of these, all but the last are in prose.
A Warning for Faire Women (1599) and
The Maid's Metamorphosis (1600) have been attributed to Lyly, but on altogether insufficient grounds.
The first editions of all these plays were issued between 1584 and 1601, and the majority of them between 1584 and 1592, in what were Lyly's most successful and popular years. His importance as a dramatist has been very differently estimated. Lyly's dialogue is still a long way removed from the dialogue of Shakespeare. But at the same time it is a great advance in rapidity and resource upon anything which had gone before it; it represents an important step in English dramatic art. His nimbleness, and the wit which struggles with his pedantry, found their full development in the dialogue of
Twelfth Night and
Much Ado about Nothing, just as "Marlowe's mighty line" led up to and was eclipsed by the majesty and music of Shakespearean passion.
One or two of the songs introduced into his plays are justly famous and show a real lyrical gift. Nor in estimating his dramatic position and his effect upon his time must it be forgotten that his classical and mythological plots, flavourless and dull as they would be to a modern audience, were charged with interest to those courtly hearers who saw in
Midas Philip II, Elizabeth in Cynthia and perhaps Leicester's unwelcome marriage with Lady Sheffield in the love affair between Endymion and Tellus which brings the former under Cynthia's displeasure. As a matter of fact his reputation and popularity as a playwright were considerable. Harvey dreaded lest Lyly should make a play upon their quarrel; Francis Meres, as is well known, places him among "the best for comedy;" and Ben Jonson names him among those foremost rivals who were "outshone" and outsung by Shakespeare.
Lyly must also be considered and remembered as a primary influence on the plays of William Shakespeare, and in particular the romantic comedies.
Love's Metamorphosis is a large influence on
Love's Labour's Lost, and
Gallathea is a major source for A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2007, Primavera Productions in London are staging a reading of
Gallathea, directed by Tom Littler, consciously linking it to Shakespeare's plays. They also claim an influence on
Twelfth Night and
As You Like It.
In addition to the plays, Lyly also composed at least one "entertainment" (a show that combined elements of masque and drama) for Queen Elizabeth;
The Entertainment at Chiswick was staged on July 28 and 29, 1602. Lyly has been suggested as the author of several other royal entertainments of the 1590s, most notably
The Entertainment at Mitcham performed on September 13, 1598.
See
Lyly's Complete Works, ed. R. Warwick Bond (3 vols., 1902);
Euphues, from early editions, by Edward Arber (1868); AW Ward,
English Dramatic Literature, i. 151; JP Collier,
History of Dramatic Poetry, iii. 172; "John Lilly and Shakespeare," by C. C. Hense in the
Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakesp. Gesellschaft, vols. vii and viii (1872, 1873); F. W. Fairholt,
Dramatic Works of John Lilly (2 vols.) More recently, all of the comedies have been edited in individual volumes as a part of the Revels Plays series.