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The second part of Henrie the fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift.
1600

STC 22288 copy 1, title page

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STC 22288 copy 1, title page
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Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: The second part of Henrie the fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift. VVith the humours of sir Iohn Falstaffe, and swaggering Pistoll. 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
Call number and opening: STC 22288 copy 1, title page
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Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
The second part of Henrie the fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift. VVith the humours of sir Iohn Falstaffe, and swaggering Pistoll. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord [...]
Item Date
London : printed by V[alentine]. S[immes]. for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, 1600.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22288 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 second part of Henrie the fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift. VVith the humours of sir Iohn Falstaffe, and swaggering Pistoll. 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
Call number and opening: STC 22288 copy 1, title page
View online bibliographic record

Folger Shakespeare Library staff, "Henry IV Part 2, first edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/265.

Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22288 copy 1. See Shakespeare Documentedhttps://doi.org/10.37078/265.

This is the first edition of Henry IV, Part 2, printed in 1600 by Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise and William Aspley, who entered it into the Stationers’ Register on August 23, 1600, along with Much Ado About Nothing. This text was probably set from Shakespeare’s own drafts, but accidentally omitted Act 3 Scene 1, which was added back into a reissue of the text later in 1600.

This edition, along with the reissue, lacks some of the text that appears in the version of the play that was included in the First Folio. Scholars believe that material was cut from these quarto editions at the behest of the censors, who felt that references to the deposed Richard II were too impolitic in light of the unrest that was stirring in 1600, which eventually lead to the Earl of Essex’s rebellion. However, by the Folio’s printing in 1623, that was in the past, and those speeches were restored (Oxford Companion 193).

The copy shown here is one of nine recorded in the English Short Title Catalogue. It is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, and was purchased by Henry Folger in October 1922. The noted Philadelphia bookseller Dr. Abraham Rosenbach offered a set of eight Shakespeare quartos to Folger, who countered saying that he already had fine copies of most, but that he would perhaps be willing to take this Henry IV Part 2 off of Rosenbach’s hands, along with a first edition of Lucrece for a mere $40,000. Rosenbach clearly accepted the offer, although the final price of the two quartos is unknown.

To learn more about the plot and early printing history of Henry IV Part 2, please see the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare's Works and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes another copy 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): 193.

Martin Wiggins, in association with Catherine Richardson. "1083. 2 Henry IV." In British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 3, 1590-1597. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): 406-414.

 

Last updated January 25, 2020