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The history of Henrie the fourth
1613

STC 22284 copy 1, title page

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STC 22284 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 : with the battell at Shrewseburie, betweene the King, and Lord Henrie Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the north : vvith the humorous conceites of Sir Iohn Falstaffe / newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Date: London : Printed by W.W. for Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, neere vnto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe, 1613.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22284 copy 1, title page
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Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
The history of Henrie the fourth : with the battell at Shrewseburie, betweene the King, and Lord Henrie Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the north : vvith the humorous conceites of Sir Iohn Falstaffe / newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Item Date
London : Printed by W.W. for Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, neere vnto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe, 1613.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22284 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 : with the battell at Shrewseburie, betweene the King, and Lord Henrie Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the north : vvith the humorous conceites of Sir Iohn Falstaffe / newly corrected by W. Shake-speare.
Date: London : Printed by W.W. for Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, neere vnto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe, 1613.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22284 copy 1, title page
View online bibliographic record

Justin Kuhn, "Henry IV Part 1, fifth edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/264.

Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22284 copy 1. See Shakespeare Documentedhttps://doi.org/10.37078/264.

Mathew Law published this fifth edition of Henry IV Part 1 in 1613. A prolific publisher of Shakespeare, he had issued the previous two quartos as well, along with multiple editions of Richard II and Richard III. Law commissioned the printer William White to produce this quarto. White had substantial experience working on playbooks, having previously printed the first quartos of Love's Labor's Lost (1598) and Pericles (1609), as well as editions of Henry VI Part 3 (1600) and Richard II (1608).

Although this is the sixth printed version of the play, it is usually referred to as “Q5” because it is the fifth quarto to survive fully intact, as only a fragment of the first quarto, “Q0,” has survived. The appearance of a sixth version of Henry IV Part 1 proves that the play continued to be a bestseller in Shakespeare's time. By 1613, only Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy had also reached a sixth printing.

The fifth edition of Henry IV Part 1 was published the same year as a significant royal event: the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, to Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Several other history plays were printed that year, along with an exceptional number of masques, royal entertainments, and pageants, which together comprised nearly half the playbooks released in 1613. Like history plays, these forms of occasional drama would often stage meditations on kingship, nobility, and English national pride. But unlike Shakespeare's histories, they also featured abstract, fantastical settings that were symbolically, rather than directly, relevant to contemporary political concerns. They sometimes even included the sitting monarch as a participant. Despite such differences, the affinity between these increasingly popular genres of drama and older history plays like Henry IV Part 1 may help explain the persistence and continuing relevance of the latter in print. 

The copy shown above is one of eleven listed in the English Short Title Catalogue, and is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. It was previously owned by Charles Jennens, William P.A. Curzon, and part of the Howe family library. 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

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