 "The Malcontent" was entered into the Stationers' Register on 5 July 1604, and published later the same year in quarto in three states, the second and third containing the additions by Marston and the induction by Webster.All three texts of the first edition were printed by Valentine Simmes for the bookseller William Aspley.The Induction to this revised version is a metatheatrical one, in which the play's actors and its onstage spectators comment on the drama that is to follow and discuss the "bitterness" of its satire.