Henry V, second edition

In 1602, two years after the first edition, the second edition of Henry V, known as Quarto 2, was printed by Thomas Creede for Thomas Pavier. Creede based this edition on the text of the first quarto, so this version also lacks many lines familiar from the 1623 First Folio’s text of the play, such as the prologues and epilogues spoken by the Chorus.

Pavier, a draper admitted to the Stationers’ Company in 1600, made his mark by reprinting plays first printed by others, taking advantage of titles with known demand. He would become infamous for the “Pavier Quartos,” a set of Shakespeare’s works with falsified imprint dates. Unlike several of the other plays included, Pavier formally owned the copyright to Henry V. He acquired it from Thomas Millington on August 14, 1600. Pavier’s acquisitions in 1600 included a number of history plays; along with Henry V, he bought the copyright to The Spanish Tragedy, Edward III, and Jack Straw, as well as the comedy The Shoemaker’s Holiday and the morality play A Looking Glass for London.

There are three copies of this edition at the Folger, Trinity College Cambridge, and the Huntington Library. The Huntington copy, shown here, was owned by Sir Henry Edward Bunbury (1778–1860), a politician and literary collector, and later by William Cavendish, the sixth Duke of Devonshire (1790–1858), who collated the copy in 1827.

To learn more about Henry V, please see the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare's Works and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes information about additional copies of this edition.