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69-564: Eighteen of the 36 plays in the First Folio were printed in separate and individual editions prior to 1623. Pericles (1609) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1634) also appeared separately before their inclusions in folio collections (the Shakespeare Third Folio and the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio , respectively). All of these were quarto editions, with two exceptions: The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York ,

138-476: A First Folio. It had been donated to the museum in 1936 by a local mill owner. This copy is missing its introductory pages and all the comedies. On 13 July 2006, a complete copy of the First Folio owned by Dr Williams's Library was auctioned at Sotheby's auction house. The book, which was in its original 17th-century binding, sold for £2,808,000, less than Sotheby's top estimate of £3.5 million. This copy

207-654: 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. 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. 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. In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio , Tara L. Lyons argues that this

276-416: 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

345-630: 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, and the book was entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623 ( Julian calendar ). 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

414-586: A conjectured £3.5 million from the sale of its First Folio to Sir Paul Getty in 2003. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library toured some of its 82 First Folios for display in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. In 2003, Anthony West identified a book previously thought to be a Second Folio in the collection of Craven Museum in Skipton, North Yorkshire, to be

483-547: A fact that reflects Allot's dominance in the endeavour. The Hawkins imprint is "exceedingly rare," and "Not more than three or four copies are known with the Smethwick imprint...." Though all copies of the Second Folio are dated 1632, some in fact are remainder issues that were released as late as 1641 and after. Among the prefatory matter is the first published poem by John Milton , printed anonymously, "An Epitaph on

552-533: A folio collection of his own plays and poems. Seven years later the folio volume Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies appeared; this edition is now called the First Folio . It contains 36 plays, 18 of which were printed for the first time. Because Shakespeare was dead, the folio was compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell (fellow actors in Shakespeare's company), and arranged into comedies, histories and tragedies. The First Folio

621-441: A month before the book went on sale; most of the work in the project must have been done by his son Isaac. 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

690-567: 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;

759-567: A previously unrecorded copy once owned by 19th-century collector Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh-Evelyn would be auctioned on 25 May 2016. According to the Antiques Trade Gazette , an American collector paid £1,600,000 for it; the buyer also successfully bid on copies of the second, third, and fourth folios. In April 2016 another new discovery was announced, a First Folio having been found in Mount Stuart House on

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828-488: A smaller typeface) or abbreviating the text. [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. Editions of individual plays were typically published in quarto and could be bought for 6 d (equivalent to £6 in 2023) without

897-421: A source for a printed text. The label Q n denotes the n  th quarto edition of a play. 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. Ben Jonson wrote

966-415: A specific consignment of the press run to sell at his shop, the size of the consignment depending upon his level of participation in the project. In all copies, though, a colophon at the end of the book gives the full list of publishers. By one account, the surviving volumes of the Second Folio inscribed for Robert Allot outnumber those for the other four publishers taken altogether, by about two to one —

1035-465: A superseded edition when the Third Folio became available in 1663/1664). 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. The term foul papers refers to Shakespeare's working drafts of a play. When completed,

1104-410: 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

1173-480: Is considered one of the most influential books ever published. Printed in folio format and containing 36 of Shakespeare's plays , it was prepared by Shakespeare's colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell . It was dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren" William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke , and his brother Philip Herbert , Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke). Although 19 of Shakespeare's plays had been published in quarto before 1623,

1242-474: Is generally looked to by actors and directors as the purest form of Shakespeare's text. While punctuation and grammar are not always accurate by today's rules, these things served as direction to the actors on how to say the lines. The First Folio was compiled by Heminges and Condell but published by a trio of stationers (booksellers and publishers): William Jaggard , his son Isaac Jaggard, and Edward Blount . William Aspley and John Smethwick participated in

1311-505: Is one of only about 40 remaining complete copies (most of the existing copies are incomplete); only one other copy of the book remains in private ownership. On 11 July 2008, it was reported that a copy stolen from Durham University , England, in 1998 had been recovered after being submitted for valuation at the Folger Shakespeare Library. News reports estimated the folio's value at anywhere from £250,000 in total for

1380-604: 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 are his poetry and the remaining 55 his plays. Counting by number of editions published before 1623,

1449-593: The Great Fire of London in 1666. One surviving copy was purchased by the Irish High Court judge and antiquarian William O'Brien in the 1880s. It was put up for auction by Sotheby's in 2017. The Fourth Folio appeared in 1685, published by R. Bentley, E. Brewster, R. Chiswell, and H. Herringman . It contains the same 43 plays as the Third Folio. Brewster, Chiswell, and Herringman were members of

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1518-458: The Isle of Bute , Scotland . It was authenticated by Professor Emma Smith of Oxford University. The Folio originally belonged to Isaac Reed . Second Folio The Second Folio is the 1632 edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare . It follows the First Folio of 1623. Much language was updated in the Second Folio and there are almost 1,700 changes. The major partners in

1587-656: The National Library of Chile , in Santiago . The First Folio is one of the most valuable printed books in the world: a copy sold at Christie's in New York in October 2001 made $ 6.16 million hammer price (then £3.73m). In October 2020, a copy sold by Mills College at Christie's fetched a price of $ 10 million, making it the most expensive work of literature ever auctioned. Oriel College, Oxford , raised

1656-757: The New York Public Library (6) in New York City , and the British Library (5) in London . The Folger collection alone accounts for more than one third of all known surviving copies. Together, the nine largest First Folio collections comprise more than half of all known extant copies. Thirty-one American colleges and universities own a total of thirty-eight copies of the First Folio, while seven British universities own fourteen copies. Universities in possession of multiple copies include

1725-478: The University of Cambridge (4), the University of Oxford (4), the University of Texas at Austin (3), Princeton University (3), Brown University (2), Harvard University (2), the University of London (2), Yale University (1) and Carnegie Mellon University (2). Three are also in the possession of the University of California system, with one each at UC Berkeley , UCLA , and UC Irvine . In Canada,

1794-515: The University of Nevada, Reno , one of the world's foremost authorities on Shakespeare. The title page and introductory material are missing. The name "Neville", written on the first surviving page, may indicate that it once belonged to Edward Scarisbrick , who fled England due to anti-Catholic repression , attended the Jesuit Saint-Omer College , and was known to use that alias. In March 2016, Christie's announced that

1863-691: The University of Toronto 's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library owns one copy and the University of British Columbia another. Ireland's only copy resides in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin . A number of copies are held by public libraries. In the United States, the New York Public Library owns six copies. The Boston Public Library , Free Library of Philadelphia (a copy previously owned by John Milton and containing notes in his handwriting), Dallas Public Library , and Buffalo & Erie County Public Library each hold one copy. In

1932-554: The First Folio and all the other books and manuscripts stolen ( BBC News , 1998), up to $ 30 million ( The New York Times , 2008). Although the book, once the property of John Cosin the Bishop of Durham , was returned to the library, it had been mutilated and was missing its cover and title page. The folio was returned to public display on 19 June 2010 after its twelve-year absence. Fifty-three-year-old Raymond Scott received an eight-year prison sentence for handling stolen goods , but

2001-444: The First Folio appeared, sometimes more than once. Shakespeare's poems were also printed in quarto or octavo form: Differing from the quartos of the plays, the first editions of Shakespeare's narrative poems are extremely well printed. " Richard Field , Shakespeare's first publisher and printer, was a Stratford man, probably a friend of Shakespeare, and the two produced an excellent text." Shakespeare may have had direct involvement in

2070-484: The First Folio had passed from the publishing scene by the time of the Second Folio: William Jaggard —official printer to the city of London (17 December 1610)—had died in 1623, and his son Isaac died in 1627. Edward Blount , the third major partner, had sold his rights to Shakespearean plays to Robert Allot in 1630, and then died in 1632. Allot thus became the prime mover in the creation of

2139-437: The First Folio is arguably the only reliable text for about 20 of the plays, and a valuable source text for many of those previously published. Eighteen of the plays in the First Folio, including The Tempest , Twelfth Night , Macbeth , Julius Caesar and Measure for Measure among others, are not known to have been previously printed. The Folio includes all of the plays generally accepted to be Shakespeare's, except

Early texts of Shakespeare's works - Misplaced Pages Continue

2208-486: 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

2277-511: The First Folio was such an enormous task that the Jaggards' shop was simply needed to get the job done. William Jaggard was old, infirm, and blind by 1623, and in fact died a month before the First Folio was complete. The First Folio was reprinted three times in the 17th century: The Second Folio appeared in 1632. Isaac Jaggard had died in 1627, and Edward Blount had transferred his rights to stationer Robert Allot in 1630. The Second Folio

2346-679: 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

2415-478: The Folio in this way. 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

2484-577: 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,

2553-532: The Second Folio. The two minor partners in the First Folio, William Aspley and John Smethwick , continued as partners in the Second Folio syndicate; Aspley owned the rights to Much Ado About Nothing and Henry IV, Part 2 , while Smethwick owned the rights to Love's Labour's Lost , Romeo and Juliet , Hamlet , and The Taming of the Shrew . Allot, Aspley, and Smethwick were joined by two other publishers: Richard Hawkins and Richard Meighen . (Hawkins owned

2622-897: The UK, the Library of Birmingham owns one copy. Additional copies are owned by the Huntington Library (4), The Shakespeare Centre (3), the Victoria and Albert Museum (3), Sutro Library (2), the Morgan Library and Museum (2), Newberry Library , Fondation Martin Bodmer , the State Library of New South Wales , the Auckland Central City Library , Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee , and

2691-413: The actual printing of the book. The elder Jaggard has seemed an odd choice to many commentators, given his problematical relationship with the Shakespeare canon: Jaggard issued the suspect collection The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599 and 1612, and in 1619 printed the so-called False Folio , ten pirated or spurious Shakespearean plays, some with false dates and title pages. It is thought that the printing of

2760-455: 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 . 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

2829-688: 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

Early texts of Shakespeare's works - Misplaced Pages Continue

2898-554: The catalogue contained many books not yet printed by 1622, and the modern consensus is that the entry was simply intended as advance publicity. 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

2967-439: 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). The First Folio

3036-428: The endeavor as subsidiary partners. It contained, in addition to blandishments provided by various admirers of Shakespeare, such as the dedication signed by "John Heminge and Henry Condell", 36 plays. They included Troilus and Cressida , which was not, however, listed in the table of contents, but omitted Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen , which are now usually considered canonical. The Jaggards were printers, and did

3105-608: The extant copies are housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. , which is home to a total of 82 First Folios. 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 until c.  1610–13 , William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon , on 23 April 1616, and was buried in the chancel of

3174-512: The first edition of Henry VI, Part 3 , was printed in octavo form in 1595, as was the 1611 edition of The most lamentable tragedy of Titus Andronicus . In chronological order, these publications were: Six of the preceding were classified as " bad quartos " by Alfred W. Pollard and other scholars associated with the New Bibliography . Popular plays like 1 Henry IV and Pericles were reprinted in their quarto editions even after

3243-490: The following plays which are believed likely to have been written, at least partly, by Shakespeare; Pericles, Prince of Tyre , The Two Noble Kinsmen , Edward III , and the two lost plays , Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won . Some believe the last of these is an alternative title for a known published Shakespeare play. Of perhaps 750 copies printed, 235 are known to remain, most of which are kept in either public archives or private collections. More than one third of

3312-478: The men who would later be involved in publishing the First Folio. 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". The contents of the First Folio were compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell ; the members of the Stationers Company who published

3381-399: The mystery lurk, What others call a play you call a work. 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

3450-488: The octavo The Rape of Lucrece needed five sheets, versus 12 in quarto. 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 an d Adonis , his Lucrece , his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends". Pray tell me Ben, where does

3519-555: The only playwright with those initials; Wentworth Smith has been put forward as another possible author of these works. Sir John Oldcastle was printed in 1619, three years after Shakespeare's death, as part of the False Folio. It was attributed to Shakespeare on its title page which also bore a false date of 1600. The Third Folio is relatively rare, compared to the Second and Fourth, probably because unsold copies were destroyed in

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3588-463: The other four might have been a John Shakespeare, of Warwickshire , who apprenticed with Jaggard in 1610 to 1617. ("Shakespeare" was a common name in Warwickshire in that era; John was of no known relation to the playwright.) 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

3657-450: The price of a single play and represented almost two months' wages for an ordinary skilled worker." It is believed that around 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, of which there are 235 known surviving copies. The world's largest collection is in the possession of the Folger Shakespeare Library (82 copies) in Washington, D.C. , followed by Meisei University (12) in Tokyo ,

3726-504: The publication of the two poems, a check such as Ben Jonson exercised in reference to the publication of his works, but as Shakespeare clearly did not do in connection with his plays. John Benson published a collected edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1640; the poems were not added to collections of the plays until the 18th century. (The disputed miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim was only printed in octavo: twice in 1599, with another in 1612, all by William Jaggard.) The folio format

3795-522: 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. 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

3864-417: The rights to Othello , while Meighen owned the rights to The Merry Wives of Windsor .) The printing of the Second Folio was done by Thomas Cotes . Individual copies of the Second Folio were issued with title-page inscriptions to each of the five publishers, in the format "printed by Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot," "...for William Aspley," etc. It appears that each of the booksellers in the syndicate took

3933-414: The rights to the book. To the second impression of the Third Folio (1664) he added seven plays, namely Pericles, Prince of Tyre ; Locrine ; The London Prodigal ; The Puritan ; Sir John Oldcastle ; Thomas Lord Cromwell ; and A Yorkshire Tragedy . (See: Shakespeare Apocrypha .) All seven of these additional plays had been published as quartos while Shakespeare was alive, but only Pericles

4002-650: The six-man syndicate that published the third Ben Jonson folio in 1692; Herringman was one of three stationers who issued the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio in 1679. The Fourth Folio in turn served as the base for the series of eighteenth-century editions of Shakespeare's plays. Nicholas Rowe used the Fourth Folio text as the foundation of his 1709 edition, and subsequent editors — Pope , Theobald , etc. — both adapted and reacted to Rowe's text in their own editions. (See: Shakespeare's editors .) The Two Noble Kinsmen did not appear in any Folio edition. It

4071-684: Was reprinted three times in the 17th century, each time by different groups of stationers; these editions are referred to as the Second Folio , Third Folio, and Fourth Folio. 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 15 s (equivalent to £174 in 2023) for an unbound copy, and up to £ 1 (equivalent to £232 in 2023) for one bound in calfskin . In terms of purchasing power , "a bound folio would be about forty times

4140-444: Was "much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." 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

4209-538: Was acquitted of the theft itself. A July 2010 BBC programme about the affair, Stealing Shakespeare , portrayed Scott as a fantasist and petty thief. In 2013, Scott killed himself in his prison cell. In November 2014, a previously unknown First Folio was found in a public library in Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais in France , where it had lain for 200 years. Confirmation of its authenticity came from Eric Rasmussen of

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4278-422: 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

4347-464: Was eventually widely accepted into the Shakespearean canon. The quartos of Pericles (1609 and 1611), The London Prodigal (1605) and A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608) were all attributed to William Shakespeare on their front pages. The quartos of Locrine (1595), The Puritan (1607) and Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602 and 1613) were attributed to W. S. on their title pages, but Shakespeare was not

4416-486: Was not generally accepted into the Shakespeare canon until well into the 20th century, when, for example, it was included in the Riverside edition of 1974. First Folio Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare , commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio , published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It

4485-578: Was not printed until 1634, although there is evidence of its being performed much earlier. The title page said "written by the memorable worthies of their time: Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakspeare [ sic ], Gent." It was not included in most editions of Shakespeare (e.g., the Cambridge/Globe editions of Wright and Clark, ca. 1863) until the latter half of the 19th century (it appears, e.g., in Dyce's collected Works of Shakespeare in 1876) but it

4554-536: 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. The octavo generally carried greater prestige, so the format itself would help to elevate their standing. Ultimately, however, the choice was a financial one: Venus and Adonis in octavo needed four sheets of paper, versus seven in quarto, and

4623-406: Was published by Allot, William Aspley, Richard Hawkins , Richard Meighen , and John Smethwick, and printed by Thomas Cotes . It contained the same plays as the First Folio and much of the same additional material, with the addition of an unsigned poem by John Milton . The Third Folio was issued in 1663, published by Philip Chetwinde ; Chetwinde had married Robert Allot's widow and so obtained

4692-451: Was reserved for expensive, prestigious volumes. During Shakespeare's lifetime, stage plays were not generally taken seriously as literature and not considered worthy of being collected into folios, so the plays printed while he was alive were printed as quartos. His poems were never included in his collected works until the eighteenth century. It was not until 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, that Ben Jonson defied convention by issuing

4761-458: Was typically made up of 9 sheets, giving 72 total pages. 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. Since the cost of paper represented about 50-75% of a book's total production costs, 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

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