Henry IV Part 1, second edition

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 3^rd 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.