STC 22304, title page
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Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Much adoe about nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by William Shakespeare.
Date: London : printed by V[alentine]. S[immes]. for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22304, title page
View online bibliographic record
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: Much adoe about nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by William Shakespeare.
Date: London : printed by V[alentine]. S[immes]. for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22304, title page
View online bibliographic record
Folger Shakespeare Library staff, "Much Ado About Nothing, first edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/270.
Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22304. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/270.
This is the first (and only) quarto edition of Much Ado About Nothing. The play was registered with the Stationers’ Company, along with Henry IV Part 2, on August 23, 1600 by Andrew Wise and William Aspley, marking the first time Shakespeare’s name appeared in the Register. This edition was printed for Wise and Aspley soon thereafter, around two years after it was first written and performed. The text of this edition seems to have been set from a working draft of the play, for in several places the names of the actors are used instead of the characters (Oxford Companion 307).
The copy shown above is one of thirteen copies of this edition listed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library, Henry Folger purchased it in 1902 and bears the crest of Almon W. Griswold, a mid-19th century New York City lawyer.
To learn more about the plot and early printing history of Much Ado About Nothing, please see the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare's Works and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes additional copies of this edition.
Written by Folger Shakespeare Library staff
Sources
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. General editor, Michael Dobson and associate general editor, Stanley Wells, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): 307.
Martin Wiggins, in association with Catherine Richardson. "1148. Much Ado About Nothing." British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 4, 1598-1602. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014): 60-4.
Last updated January 25, 2020
