from I - SHAKESPEARE'S VERSIFICATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
Our original authorities for the text of Shakespeare's works are certain Quarto editions published at various dates during his life-time and the First Folio. The last, which was published in 1623, seven years after his death, contains the whole of the plays except Pericles, but not the poems. For the following twenty plays the Folio is our sole authority: The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, All's Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, King John, all three parts of Henry VI, Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline. If no Quarto has been lost, these were set up from play-house copies, but save perhaps one or two, probably none from Shakespeare's ms. A few of the Quarto texts, however, were probably printed from his original copy. Some of the Quartos ran through several editions, each being as a rule set up from its immediate predecessor and exhibiting an increase in the number of blunders. The Folio text of Quarto plays was in most cases printed from an existing Quarto, usually the latest and most incorrect edition. In some instances the Quarto appears to have been compared with a play-house copy, but it is generally agreed that the whole of the Folio text (both in Quarto and Folio plays) shows unmistakable signs of having been independently “edited” by the reviser or revisers who prepared it for the press.
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