First Folio

Memorial to William Shakespeare in the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey

After a long career as an actor, dramatist, and sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men) from c. 1585–90[lower-alpha 2] until c. 1610–13, William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon, on 23 April 1616,[lower-alpha 3] and was buried in the chancel of the Church of the Holy Trinity two days later.

Shakespeare's works—both poetic and dramatic—had a rich history in print before the publication of the First Folio: from the first publications of Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), 78 individual printed editions of his works are known. Of these, 23 (c. 30%) are his poetry and the remaining 55 his plays. Counting by number of editions published before 1623, the best-selling works were Venus and Adonis (12 editions), The Rape of Lucrece (6 editions), and Henry IV, Part 1 (6 editions). Of the 23 editions of the poems, 16 were published in octavo; the rest, and almost all of the editions of the plays, were printed in quarto.[7] The quarto format was made by folding a large sheet of printing paper twice, forming 4 leaves with 8 pages. The average quarto measured 7 by 9 inches (18 by 23 cm) and was made up of c. 9 sheets, giving 72 total pages.[8] Octavos—made by folding a sheet of the same size three times, forming 8 leaves with 16 pages—were about half as large as a quarto.[7] Since the cost of paper represented c. 50–75% of a book's total production costs,[8] octavos were generally cheaper to manufacture than quartos, and a common way to reduce publishing costs was to reduce the number of pages needed by compressing (using two columns or a smaller typeface) or abbreviating the text.[7]

[Publish me in] the Smallest size,
Least I bee eaten vnder Pippin-pyes.
Or in th’ Apothicaryes shop bee seene
To wrap Drugg’s: or to dry Tobacco in.
First (might I chuse) I would be bound to wipe,
Where he discharged last his Glister-pipe.

— Henry Fitzgeffrey, Certain Elegies (1618)

Editions of individual plays were typically published in quarto and could be bought for 6d (equivalent to £5 in 2021) without a binding. These editions were primarily intended to be cheap and convenient, and read until worn out or repurposed as wrapping paper (or worse), rather than high quality objects kept in a library.[8] Customers who wanted to keep a particular play would have to have it bound, and would typically bind several related or miscellany plays into one volume.[9] Octavos, though nominally cheaper to produce, were somewhat different. From c. 1595–96 (Venus and Adonis) and 1598 (The Rape of Lucrece), Shakespeare's narrative poems were published in octavo.[10] In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio, Tara L. Lyons argues that this was partly due to the publisher, John Harrison's, desire to capitalize on the poems' association with Ovid: the Greek classics were sold in octavo, so printing Shakespeare's poetry in the same format would strengthen the association.[11] The octavo generally carried greater prestige, so the format itself would help to elevate their standing.[10] Ultimately, however, the choice was a financial one: Venus and Adonis in octavo needed four sheets of paper, versus seven in quarto, and the octavo The Rape of Lucrece needed five sheets, versus 12 in quarto.[11] Whatever the motivation, the move seems to have had the intended effect: Francis Meres, the first known literary critic to comment on Shakespeare, in his Palladis Tamia (1598), puts it thus: "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends".[12]

Pray tell me Ben, where does the mystery lurk,
What others call a play you call a work.

— anonymous, Wits Recreations (1640)

Publishing literary works in folio was not unprecedented. Starting with the publication of Sir Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1593) and Astrophel and Stella (1598), both published by William Ponsonby, there was a significant number of folios published, and a significant number of them were published by the men who would later be involved in publishing the First Folio.[lower-alpha 4] But quarto was the typical format for plays printed in the period: folio was a prestige format, typically used, according to Fredson Bowers, for books of "superior merit or some permanent value".[14]

The contents of the First Folio were compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell;[15] the members of the Stationers Company who published the book were the booksellers Edward Blount and the father/son team of William and Isaac Jaggard. William Jaggard has seemed an odd choice by the King's Men because he had published the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim as Shakespeare's, and in 1619 had printed new editions of 10 Shakespearean quartos to which he did not have clear rights, some with false dates and title pages (the False Folio affair). Indeed, his contemporary Thomas Heywood, whose poetry Jaggard had pirated and misattributed to Shakespeare, specifically reports that Shakespeare was "much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name."[16]

Heminges and Condell emphasised that the Folio was replacing the earlier publications, which they characterised as "stol'n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors", asserting that Shakespeare's true words "are now offer'd to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them."

The paper industry in England was then in its infancy and the quantity of quality rag paper for the book was imported from France.[17] It is thought that the typesetting and printing of the First Folio was such a large job that the King's Men simply needed the capacities of the Jaggards' shop. William Jaggard was old, infirm and blind by 1623, and died a month before the book went on sale; most of the work in the project must have been done by his son Isaac.

Comparison of the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in the first three editions of Hamlet, showing the varying quality of the text in the Bad Quarto, the Good Quarto and the First Folio

The First Folio's publishing syndicate also included two stationers who owned the rights to some of the individual plays that had been previously printed: William Aspley (Much Ado About Nothing and Henry IV, Part 2) and John Smethwick (Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet). Smethwick had been a business partner of another Jaggard, William's brother John.

The printing of the Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623. It is possible that the printer originally expected to have the book ready early, since it was listed in the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue as a book to appear between April and October 1622, but the catalogue contained many books not yet printed by 1622, and the modern consensus is that the entry was simply intended as advance publicity.[18] The first impression had a publication date of 1623, and the earliest record of a retail purchase is an account book entry for 5 December 1623 of Edward Dering (who purchased two); the Bodleian Library, in Oxford, received its copy in early 1624 (which it subsequently sold for £24 as a superseded edition when the Third Folio became available in 1663/1664).[19]

The 36 plays of the First Folio occur in the order given below; plays that had never been published before 1623 are marked with an asterisk. Each play is followed by the type of source used, as determined by bibliographical research.[20]

The term foul papers refers to Shakespeare's working drafts of a play. When completed, a transcript or fair copy of the foul papers would be prepared, by the author or by a scribe. Such a manuscript would have to be heavily annotated with accurate and detailed stage directions and all the other data needed for performance, and then could serve as a prompt book, to be used by the prompter to guide a performance of the play. Any of these manuscripts, in any combination, could be used as a source for a printed text. The label Qn denotes the nth quarto edition of a play.

Table of Contents from the First Folio

Memorial to John Heminges and Henry Condell, editors of the First Folio, at Bassishaw, London

Comedies

• 1 The Tempest * – the play was set into type from a manuscript prepared by Ralph Crane, a professional scrivener employed by the King's Men. Crane produced a high-quality result, with formal act/scene divisions, frequent use of parentheses and hyphenated forms, and other identifiable features.
• 2 The Two Gentlemen of Verona * – another transcript by Ralph Crane.
• 3 The Merry Wives of Windsor – another transcript by Ralph Crane.
• 4 Measure for Measure * – probably another Ralph Crane transcript.
• 5 The Comedy of Errors * – probably typeset from Shakespeare's "foul papers," lightly annotated.
• 6 Much Ado About Nothing – typeset from a copy of the quarto, lightly annotated.
• 7 Love's Labour's Lost – typeset from a corrected copy of Q1.
• 8 A Midsummer Night's Dream – typeset from a copy of Q2, well-annotated, possibly used as a prompt-book.
• 9 The Merchant of Venice – typeset from a lightly edited and corrected copy of Q1.
• 10 As You Like It * – from a quality manuscript, lightly annotated by a prompter.
• 11 The Taming of the Shrew * – typeset from Shakespeare's "foul papers," somewhat annotated, perhaps as preparation for use as a prompt-book.
• 12 All's Well That Ends Well * – probably from Shakespeare's "foul papers" or a manuscript of them.
• 13 Twelfth Night * – typeset either from a prompt-book or a transcript of one.
• 14 The Winter's Tale * – another transcript by Ralph Crane.

Histories

• 15 King John * – uncertain: a prompt-book, or "foul papers."
• 16 Richard II – typeset from Q3 and Q5, corrected against a prompt-book.
• 17 Henry IV, Part 1 – typeset from an edited copy of Q5.
• 18 Henry IV, Part 2 – uncertain: some combination of manuscript and quarto text.
• 19 Henry V – typeset from Shakespeare's "foul papers."
• 20 Henry VI, Part 1 * – likely from an annotated transcript of the author's manuscript.
• 21 Henry VI, Part 2 – probably a Shakespearean manuscript used as a prompt-book.
• 22 Henry VI, Part 3 – like 2H6, probably a Shakespearean prompt-book.
• 23 Richard III – a difficult case: probably typeset partially from Q3, and partially from Q6 corrected against a manuscript (maybe "foul papers").
• 24 Henry VIII * – typeset from a fair copy of the authors' manuscript.

Tragedies

• 25 Troilus and Cressida – probably typeset from the quarto, corrected with Shakespeare's "foul papers," printed after the rest of the Folio was completed.
• 26 Coriolanus * – set from a high-quality authorial transcript.
• 27 Titus Andronicus – typeset from a copy of Q3 that might have served as a prompt-book.
• 28 Romeo and Juliet – in essence a reprint of Q3.
• 29 Timon of Athens * – set from Shakespeare's foul papers or a transcript of them.
• 30 Julius Caesar * – set from a prompt-book, or a transcript of a prompt-book.
• 31 Macbeth * – probably set from a prompt-book, perhaps detailing an adaptation of the play for a short indoor performance
• 32 Hamlet – one of the most difficult problems in the First Folio: probably typeset from some combination of Q2 and manuscript sources.
• 33 King Lear – a difficult problem: probably set mainly from Q1 but with reference to Q2, and corrected against a prompt-book.
• 34 Othello – another difficult problem: probably typeset from Q1, corrected with a quality manuscript.
• 35 Antony and Cleopatra * – possibly "foul papers" or a transcript of them.
• 36 Cymbeline * – possibly another Ralph Crane transcript, or else the official prompt-book.

Troilus and Cressida was originally intended to follow Romeo and Juliet, but the typesetting was stopped, probably due to a conflict over the rights to the play; it was later inserted as the first of the tragedies, when the rights question was resolved. It does not appear in the table of contents.[21]

Ben Jonson wrote a preface to the folio with this poem addressed "To the Reader" facing the Droeshout portrait engraving:

This Figure, that thou here ſeeſt put,
  It vvas for gentle Shakeſpeare cut;
Wherein the Grauer had a ſtrife
  vvith Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but haue dravvne his vvit
  As vvell in braſſe, as he hath hit
His face; the Print vvould then ſurpaſſe
  All, that vvas euer vvrit in braſſe.
But, ſince he cannot, Reader, looke
  Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

  B. I.

As far as modern scholarship has been able to determine,[22] the First Folio texts were set into type by five compositors, with different spelling habits, peculiarities, and levels of competence. Researchers have labelled them A through E, A being the most accurate, and E an apprentice who had significant difficulties in dealing with manuscript copy. Their shares in typesetting the pages of the Folio break down like this:

Compositor "E" was most likely one John Leason, whose apprenticeship contract dated only from 4 November 1622. One of the other four might have been a John Shakespeare, of Warwickshire, who apprenticed with Jaggard in 1610–17. ("Shakespeare" was a common name in Warwickshire in that era; John was no known relation to the playwright.)

The First Folio (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

W. W. Greg has argued that Edward Knight, the "book-keeper" or "book-holder" (prompter) of the King's Men, did the actual proofreading of the manuscript sources for the First Folio. Knight is known to have been responsible for maintaining and annotating the company's scripts, and making sure that the company complied with cuts and changes ordered by the Master of the Revels.

Some pages of the First Folio – 134 out of the total of 900 – were proofread and corrected while the job of printing the book was ongoing. As a result, the Folio differs from modern books in that individual copies vary considerably in their typographical errors. There were about 500 corrections made to the Folio in this way.[23] These corrections by the typesetters, however, consisted only of simple typos, clear mistakes in their own work; the evidence suggests that they almost never referred back to their manuscript sources, let alone tried to resolve any problems in those sources. The well-known cruxes in the First Folio texts were beyond the typesetters' capacity to correct.

The Folio was typeset and bound in "sixes" – 3 sheets of paper, taken together, were folded into a booklet-like quire or gathering of 6 leaves, 12 pages. Once printed, the "sixes" were assembled and bound together to make the book. The sheets were printed in 2-page formes, meaning that pages 1 and 12 of the first quire were printed simultaneously on one side of one sheet of paper (which became the "outer" side); then pages 2 and 11 were printed on the other side of the same sheet (the "inner" side). The same was done with pages 3 and 10, and 4 and 9, on the second sheet, and pages 5 and 8, and 6 and 7, on the third. Then the first quire could be assembled with its pages in the correct order. The next quire was printed by the same method: pages 13 and 24 on one side of one sheet, etc. This meant that the text being printed had to be "cast off" – the compositors had to plan beforehand how much text would fit onto each page. If the compositors were setting type from manuscripts (perhaps messy, revised and corrected manuscripts), their calculations would frequently be off by greater or lesser amounts, resulting in the need to expand or compress. A line of verse could be printed as two; or verse could be printed as prose to save space, or lines and passages could even be omitted (a disturbing prospect for those who prize Shakespeare's works).[24]

The Folger Shakespeare Library owns 82 copies of the First Folio—more than one third of all known surviving copies.[25]

Jean-Christophe Mayer, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio (2016), estimates the original retail price of the First Folio to be about 15s (equivalent to £147 in 2021) for an unbound copy, and up to £1 (equivalent to £196 in 2021) for one bound in calfskin.[lower-alpha 5] In terms of purchasing power, "a bound folio would be about forty times the price of a single play and represented almost two months’ wages for an ordinary skilled worker."[26]

It is believed that around 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, of which there are 235 known surviving copies.[27][28][29]

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