As You Like It was likely written between 1598 and 1600. It was entered in the Stationers' Register on August 4, 1600 but no edition followed the entry, thereby leading to the ambiguity in its publication date. Two topical references have been used by scholars to claim 1599 as the date of writing, but even this is inference only. For instance, Francis Meres, a contemporary of Shakespeare, listed the plays known to him in September of 1598 and did not include As You Like It among them. The first known publication is in the 1623 First Folio, taken either from Shakespeare's promptbook or less likely from a literary transcript of the promptbook.

The source for the plot of As You Like It is derived from Thomas Lodge's extremely popular prose romance Rosalynde. Written in 1586-87 and published in 1590, Shakespeare knew the story quite well although he changed a great deal of the details and emphasized different things. Lodge for example did not have ducal brothers, but Shakespeare chose to make enmity between brothers central to the theme of the play. Shakespeare also chooses to make primogeniture a target of his criticism by allowing Oliver to inherit everything, whereas Lodge had an equal inheritance between the brothers in his version. The clown Touchstone and the melancholically satirical Jaques are also both creations of Shakespeare.

The Forest of Ardenne is from Lodge's romance, and actually describes an ancient woodland comprising parts of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Shakespeare used the French setting through his choice of the French spelling, "Ardenne". However, the First Folio indicates another spelling, namely the Forest of Arden, an Anglicized spelling that also corresponds to a forest near Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire. This happy coincidence is indicative of the doubleness in the play; although set in a foreign kingdom the play refers to English customs such as Robin Hood and primogeniture. Thus the play can deal with problems at home in spite of its seemingly foreign setting.


The story of Orlando and Oliver comes from another source, that of The Tale of Gamelyn, a Middle English story in which a younger brother seeks revenge on an older brother who mistreats him. This story invokes the name of Robin Hood, the famous English outlaw who lived near Nottingham and poached the king's deer. Indeed, the opening scenes of As You Like It invoke the image of Robin Hood when Charles the Wrestler describes Duke Senior as a modern day Robin Hood with his band of nobles around him.