Richard II, first edition

Shakespeare’s Richard II made its debut in print in 1597, approximately two years after the play’s original performance on stage. Likely performed in autumn of 1595, the earliest account of the play in performance survives in the form of a letter from Sir Edward Hoby to Robert Cecil dated December 7, 1595.

London bookseller Andrew Wise entered the play in the Stationers’ Register on August 29, 1597, and published the first edition that year. Richard II was the first of several Shakespeare plays Wise would eventually publish. In addition to two more editions of Richard II, he brought out four editions of Richard III, three of Henry IV Part 1, and one each of Henry IV Part 2 and Much Ado About Nothing. Valentine Simmes, a frequent collaborator with Wise, and a recurrent printer of Shakespeare’s plays from 1597 to 1603, printed the first three editions of Richard II. 

The first edition is the only edition of Richard II printed without Shakespeare’s name on the title page. This edition contains a shorter version of the play; the version we are more familiar with today was not printed until 1608. The later, longer version features the on-stage deposition of King Richard, a potentially controversial scene. The absence of “the deposition scene” in the first three quarto editions has led critics to debate the possible censorship and revision of Shakespeare’s plays.

Besides the absence of Shakespeare’s name on the title page and the lack of the “deposition scene,” the first edition of Richard II is generally believed to be the closest to Shakespeare’s original manuscript. Subsequent quarto editions largely reprint the text of the prior edition, while the First Folio edition of the play is believed to have been based on the third or fifth quarto edition with consultation of a playhouse document.

The copy shown above is one of four listed in the English Short Title Catalogue. It was owned by the 19^th century book collector and writer George Daniel and sold following his death in July 1864. The text then came into the possession of book collector Alfred Henry Huth, whose will bequeathed the British Museum their choice of 50 of his volumes before the public auction of the rest of his library in 1911. This copy of the first edition of Richard II was among their selection. To learn more about this copy, please see the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto.  

To learn more about Richard II, see the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare's Works and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto.