Three reached four editions, viz. 'Richard II' (1597, 1598, 1608, supplying the deposition scene for the first time, 1615), 'Hamlet' (1603 imperfect, 1604, 1605, 1611), and Romeo and Juliet' (1597 imperfect, 1599, two in 1609). Two reached three editions, viz. 'Henry V' (1600 imperfect, 1602, and 1608) and 'Pericles' (two in 1609, 1611). Four reached two editions, viz. Midsummer Night's Dream' (both in 1600), 'Merchant of Venice' (both in 1600), Lear' (both in 1608), and 'Troilus and Cressida ' (both in 1609). Five achieved only one edition, viz. 'Love's Labour's Lost' (1598), '2 Henry IV' (1600), 'Much Ado' (1600), 'Titus' (1600), 'Merry Wives' (1602 imperfect). 'Othello was first mous quartos of the plays. Three years after Shakespeare's death-in 1619-there Posthuappeared a second edition of 'Merry Wives' (again imperfect) and a fourth of 'Pericles.' printed posthumously in 1622 (4to), and in the same year sixth editions of 'Richard III' and '1 Henry IV' appeared. The largest collections of the original quartos - each of which survives in only four, five, or six copies are in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the British Museum, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the Bodleian Library. Lithographed facsimiles of most of these volumes, with some of the quarto editions of the poems (forty-eight volumes in all), were prepared by Mr. E. W. Ashbee, and issued to subscribers by Halliwell-Phillipps between 1862 and 1871. A cheaper set of quarto facsimiles, undertaken by Mr. W. Griggs, under the supervision of Dr. F. J. Furnivall, appeared in forty-three volumes between 1880 and 1889. All the quartos were issued in Shakespeare's day at sixpence each. Perfect copies now range in price, according to their rarity, from 200l. to 300%. In 1864, at the sale of George Daniel's library, quarto copies of 'Love's Labour's Lost' and of 'Merry Wives' (first edition) each fetched 346%. 10s. On May 14, 1897, a copy of the quarto of 'The Merchant of Venice' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was sold at Sotheby's for 3157. On April 25, 1899, a copy of the quarto of the 'Troublesome raigne of John King of England,' 1591, a play in vogue before Shakespeare attempted the same theme, was sold at Sotheby's for 510l.-the highest price that a quarto play of the period has yet reached. The First The publishing In 1623 the first attempt was made to give the world a complete edition of Shakespeare's plays. Two of the dramatist's intimate friends and fellow-actors, John Heming and Henry Condell, were nominally responsible for the venture, but it seems to have been suggested by a small syndicate of printers and publishers, who undertook all pecuniary responsibility. Chief of the syndicate was William Jaggard, printer since 1611 to the City of London, who was established in business in Fleet Street at the east end of St. Dunstan's Church. As the piratical publisher of 'The Passionate Pilgrim' he had long known the commercial value of Shakespeare's work. In 1613 he had extended his business by purchasing the stock and rights of a rival syndicate. pirate, James Roberts, who had printed the quarto editions of The Merchant of Venice' and 'Midsummer Night's Dream' in 1600, and the complete quarto of 'Hamlet' in 1604. Roberts had enjoyed for nearly twenty years the right to print the players' bills,' or programmes, and he made over that privilege to Jaggard with his other literary property. It is to the close personal relations with the playhouse managers into which the acquisition of the right of printing the players' bills' brought Jaggard after 1613 that the inception of the scheme of the First Folio' may safely be attributed. Jaggard associated his son Isaac with the enterprise. They alone of the members of the syndicate were printers. Their three partners were publishers or booksellers only. Two of these, William Aspley and John Smethwick, had already speculated in plays of Shakespeare. Aspley had published with another in 1600 the 'Second Part of Henry IV' and 'Much Ado about Nothing,' and in 1609 half of Thorpe's impression of Shakespeare's 'Sonnets.' Smethwick, whose shop was in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet Street, near Jaggard's, had published in 1611 two late editions of Romeo and Juliet' and one of 'Hamlet.' Edward Blount, the fifth partner, was an interesting figure in the trade, and, unlike his companions, had a true taste in literature. He had been a friend and admirer of Christopher Marlowe, and had actively engaged in the posthumous publication of two of Marlowe's poems. He had published that curious collection of mystical verse entitled 'Love's Martyr,' one poem in which, a poetical essay of the Phoenix and the Turtle,' was signed William Shakespeare.' The First Folio was doubtless printed in Jaggard's printing office near St. Dunstan's Church. Upon Blount probably fell the chief labour of seeing the work through the press. It was in progress throughout 1623, and had so far advanced by November 8, 1623, that on that day Edward Blount and Isaac (son of William) Jaggard obtained formal license from the Stationers' Company to publish sixteen of the twenty hitherto unprinted plays that it was intended to include. The pieces, whose approaching publication for the first time was thus announced, were of supreme literary interest. The titles ran: 'The Tempest,' 'The Two Gentlemen,' 'Measure for Measure,' 'Comedy of Errors,' 'As You Like It,' 'All's Well,' 'Twelfth Night,' 'Winter's Tale,' '3 Henry VI,' 'Henry VIII,' 'Coriolanus,' 'Timon,' Julius Cæsar, Macbeth,' Antony and Cleopatra,' and 'Cymbeline.' Four other hitherto unprinted dramas for which no license was sought figured in the volume, viz. 'King John,' 'I and 2 Henry VI,' and 'The Taming of The Shrew'; but each of these plays was based by Shakespeare on a play of like title which had been published at an earlier date, and the absence of a license was doubtless due to an ignorant misconception on the part either of the Stationers' Company's officers or of the editors of the volume as to the true relations subsisting between the old pieces and the new. The only play by Shakespeare that had been previously published and was not included in the First Folio was 'Pericles.' Thirty-six pieces in all were thus brought together. The volume consisted of nearly one thousand double-column pages and was sold at a pound a copy. From the number of copies that survive it may be estimated that the edition numbered 500. The book was described on the title-page as published by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, and in the colophon as printed at the charges of 'W. Jaggard, I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley,' as well as of Blount. On The prethe title-page was engraved the Droeshout portrait. Com- fatory mendatory verses were supplied by Ben Jonson, Hugh Holland, Leonard Digges, and I. M., perhaps Jasper Maine. The dedication was addressed to the brothers William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Chamberlain, and Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, and was signed by Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, Heming and Condell. The choice of such patrons was in strict accordance with custom. To the two earls in partnership nearly every work of matter. any literary pretension was dedicated at the period. Moreover, the third Earl of Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain in 1623, and exercised supreme authority in theatrical affairs. That his patronage should be sought for a collective edition of the works of the acknowledged master of the contemporary stage was a matter of course. The editors yielded to a passing vogue in soliciting the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain's brother in conjunction with the Lord Chamberlain. 'But since (the dedicators write) your lordships have beene pleas'd to thinke these trifles something, heretofore; and have prosequuted both them, and their Authour living, with so much favour: we hope that (they outliving him, and he not having the fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his owne writings) you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference, whether any Booke choose his Patrones, or find them: This hath done both. For, so much were your lordships' likings of the severall parts, when they were acted, as, before they were published, the Volume ask'd to be yours.' The dedicators imply that the brother earls fully shared the enthusiastic esteem which James I and all the noblemen of his Court extended to Shakespeare and his plays in the dramatist's lifetime. At the conclusion of their address to Lords Pembroke and Montgomery, the dedicators, in describing the dramatist's works as 'these remaines of your Servant Shakespeare,' remind their noble patrons anew that the dramatist had been a conspicuous object of their favour in his capacity of 'King's servant' or player. The signatures of Heming and Condell were also appended to a succeeding address to the great variety of readers.' In both addresses the two actors probably made pretension to a larger responsibility for the enterprise than they really incurred, but their motives in identifying themselves with the venture were doubtless irreproachable. They disclaimed (they wrote in their second address) 'ambition either of selfe-profit or fame in undertaking the design,' being solely moved by anxiety to 'keepe the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare.' 'It had bene a thing we confesse worthie to haue bene wished,' they inform the reader, 'that the author himselfe had liued to haue set forth and ouerseen his owne writings. . A list of contents follows the address to the readers. The title-page states that all the plays were printed |