Date

The Two Gentlemen of Verona was probably one of Shakespeare's first comedies alongside The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew. There is little firm evidence to establish a date for composition. It is often thought to have been written between 1592-94. 

There is no record of a contemporary performance, although it is first mentioned by Francis Meres in his list of plays in Palladis Tamia in 1598. It was first published in 1623 in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays.

Sources

There is no principal source for The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but male friendship and love triangles are a frequent and strong element of medieval literature.

The plot may be based on a story in Jorge de Montemayor's Diana Enamorada, a lost Queen's Men play called Felix and Feliomena (1580), Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562), Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, John Lyly's Euphues (1578) and perhapsMidas (c.1589).