The earliest mention of the play is found in a 1604 Revels Office account, which records that on "Hallamas Day, being the first of Nouembar… the Kings Maiesties plaiers" performed "A Play in the Banketinghouse att Whit Hall Called The Moor of Venis." The work is attributed to "Shaxberd." Based on its style, the play is usually dated 1603 or 1604, but arguments have been made for dates as early as 1601 or 1602.
The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on October 6, 1621, by Thomas Walkley, and was first published in quarto format by him in 1622:
THE Tragœdy of Othello, The Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diuerse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black-Friers, by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by VVilliam Shakespeare. LONDON, Printed by N. O. for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop, at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse, 1622.
One year later, the play was included among the plays in the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected plays. However, the version in the Folio is rather different in length, and in wording. The Folio play has about 160 lines that do not appear in the Quarto. The Folio also lacks a scattering of about a dozen lines or part-lines that are to be found in the Quarto. These two versions also differ from each other in their readings of numerous words.
One explanation of these differences is that the Quarto may have been cut in the printing house to meet a fixed number of pages. Another is that the Quarto is based on an early version of the play, while the Folio represents Shakespeare's revised version. Most modern editions are based on the longer Folio version, but often incorporate Quarto readings of words when the Folio text appears to be in error.
Othello is an adaptation of the Italian writer Cinthio's tale, "Un Capitano Moro". Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in Venice about 1508. It also resembles an incident described in the earlier tale of "The Three Apples", one of the stories narrated in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights).
Desdemona is the only named character in Cinthio's tale, with his few other characters identified only as "the Moor", "the squadron leader", "the ensign", and "the ensign's wife". Cinthio drew a moral (which he placed in the mouth of Desdemona) that European women are unwise to marry the temperamental males of other nations.
Shakespeare's most striking departure from Cinthio is the manner of his heroine's death. In Shakespeare, Othello suffocates Desdemona, but in Cinthio, the Moor commissions his ensign to bludgeon his wife to death with a sand-filled stocking. Cinthio describes each gruesome blow, and, when the lady is dead, the Moor and his ensign place her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and cause the cracked ceiling above the bed to collapse upon her, giving the impression its falling rafters caused her death.
Othello is referred to as a "Moor", a term used during the English Renaissance to refer to dark-skinned people in general. Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. The term "Moor" was used interchangeably with such similarly ambiguous terms to designate a figure from different parts of Africa (or beyond) who was either black or Moslem, neither, or both.
There is no consensus over Othello's racial classification, but the character is normally performed as a black person, although he was frequently performed as an Arab during the nineteenth century. In III.III Othello speaks of himself, saying "Haply for I am black" and later in III.III he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face." Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter skin of hers than snow." Iago refers to their racial difference when in I.I he tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe".
Although the difference appears clear cut, E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. Back then, French, British, and Italian people generally considered anyone who was "darker than snow white" with the term "black". To many Europeans, the word "dark" and the word "black" were inter-changeable. So regarding the Moor Othello, the term "black" would not be conclusive proof necessarily for a Sub-Saharan typical "black" look for him in Shakespeare's mind.