Othello was not published near the time of its earliest recorded production,  which may serve as some indication that Othello was not one of Shakespeare's more popular plays.  However this is not necessarily the case.  Playwrights and acting companies, who often shared ownership in the play, were not keen to allow other acting groups access to their plays, for there was no way to collect a royalty for production of a play by a rival acting company.  Intellectual property rights, as they are called today, were very primitive in Elizabethan England.   Most scholars date the play 1604, in part from internal evidence, and from an entry in the "Revels Accounts" of the play being produced that year.  (Some have questioned that entry as a forgery.) But the first printed version of the play (Q1) did not appear until 1622.  The second printed version was (F) in 1623.  A third printed version (Q2) appeared in 1630 and is also of interest to scholars.

There are substantial differences between Q1 and F indicating that they were set from different sources. (Or if F was set from Q1, it had been heavily emended and altered.) There are 160 more lines in F than in Q1, but  at the same time Q1 has more stage directions than F.  As any reader might guess, these major differences have led to much speculation and lengthy discussion, because neither of these editions of the play is demonstrably worse or better than the other-- they are simply different.  In some areas the reader may prefer F, in others Q1, and of course, each reader may have a different reaction.

Generally speaking F is normally used as the copy text with Q1 used for changes and Q2 consulted for verification, but it is important to note that modern texts of Othello may differ significantly in detail as modern editors struggle to present what to them is the most readable, authoritative, and reliable text of this play.