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The history of Henrie the Fourth
1599

STC 22281 copy 1, title page

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STC 22281 copy 1, title page
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Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

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Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: The history of Henrie the Fourth; vvith the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henry Hotspur of the north. VVith the humorous conceits of Sir Iohn Falstalffe [sic]. Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Date: At London : Printed by S.S. for Andrew VVise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell, 1599.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22281 copy 1, title page
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Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
The history of Henrie the Fourth; vvith the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henry Hotspur of the north. VVith the humorous conceits of Sir Iohn Falstalffe [sic]. Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Item Date
At London : Printed by S.S. for Andrew VVise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell, 1599.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22281 copy 1, title page

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Terms of use
Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: The history of Henrie the Fourth; vvith the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henry Hotspur of the north. VVith the humorous conceits of Sir Iohn Falstalffe [sic]. Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Date: At London : Printed by S.S. for Andrew VVise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell, 1599.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22281 copy 1, title page
View online bibliographic record

 

Justin Kuhn, "Henry IV Part 1, second edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/263.

Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22281 copy 1. See Shakespeare Documentedhttps://doi.org/10.37078/263.

The title page of the second edition of Henry IV Part 1 identifies William Shakespeare as the play’s author for the first time in print. The practice of including authorial attribution on title pages was becoming increasingly common at the turn of the century. This edition even goes so far as to declare that the play has been “Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.” Traditionally, scholars have regarded such assertions as marketing ploys. However, Sonia Massai has demonstrated that these “editorial pledges” do seem to indicate legitimate efforts to improve printed texts, even if they are not comprehensive corrections. Love's Labor's Lost (1598) was the first of Shakespeare's plays to boast such a claim of revision, and the claim subsequently appeared on his plays more often than on any other contemporary playwright's (Farmer). Later editions of Henry IV Part 1 feature the same pronouncement. 

Although this is the third printed version of the play, it is usually referred to as “Q2” because it is the second quarto to survive fully intact, as only a fragment of the first quarto, “Q0,” has survived. The publisher Andrew Wise used the printer Peter Short for the earlier printings of the play, but switched to the less experienced Simon Stafford for this edition. Stafford had only begun to print drama in 1599, but his career would soon take off. He would later print an edition of Pericles (1611).

The copy shown above is one of ten listed in the English Short Title Catalogue, and is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. The title page is inscribed twice by George Steevens, and the armorial stamp of the 3rd Duke of Roxburge is on the title page’s verso. To learn more about Henry IV Part 1, see the Folger's Shakespeare’s Works, and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes information about another copy of this edition.

Written by Justin Kuhn

Sources

Sonia Massai, “Editorial Pledges in Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts”, in Renaissance Paratexts, eds. Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (Cambridge, 2011).
Alan Farmer, “Shakespeare as Leading Playwright in Print, 1598-1608/9,” in Shakespeare and Textual Studies, eds. Margaret Jane Kidnie and Sonia Massai (Cambridge, 2015).
DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks. Ed. Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser. Created 2007. <deep.sas.upenn.edu>.
English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). British Library. <estc.bl.uk>
David Scott Kastan, eds. King Henry IV: Part 1 (London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2002).

Last updated January 25, 2020