STC 22324, title page
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Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: The most excellent and lamentable tragedie, of Romeo and Iuliet. As it hath beene sundrie times publiquely acted, by the Kings Maiesties Seruants at the Globe.
Date: London : Printed [by John Windet] for Iohn Smethvvick, and are to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstanes Church-yard, in Fleetestreete vnder the Dyall, 1609.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22324, title page
View online bibliographic record
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 most excellent and lamentable tragedie, of Romeo and Iuliet. As it hath beene sundrie times publiquely acted, by the Kings Maiesties Seruants at the Globe.
Date: London : Printed [by John Windet] for Iohn Smethvvick, and are to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstanes Church-yard, in Fleetestreete vnder the Dyall, 1609.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22324, title page
View online bibliographic record
Folger Shakespeare Library staff, "Romeo and Juliet, third edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/277.
Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22324. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/277.
The publication rights for Romeo and Juliet were transferred twice in 1607, on January 22 from Cuthbert Burby to Nicholas Ling, and on November 19 from Ling to John Smethwicke. This third edition of the play was finally printed for Smethwicke in 1609 by John Windet, and names the King’s Men as the acting company (Wiggins).
Romeo and Juliet was probably written in 1595. The first edition, printed in 1597, was an unlicensed publication that cobbled together text from the memories of two of the actors. The second edition, printed in 1599, is considered more reliable, although it shares over 80 lines with the first edition, and was used as the basis for all subsequent quarto editions (Oxford Companion 397).
The copy shown above is one of six copies listed in the English Short Title Catalogue. It is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, and was purchased by Henry Folger in March 1913 from a Sotheby’s sale.
To learn more about the plot and early printing history of Romeo and Juliet, please see the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare's Works and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes information on another copy of this edition.
Written by Folger Shakespeare Library staff
Sources
Martin Wiggins, in association with Catherine Richardson. "987. Romeo and Juliet." In British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 3, 1590-1597 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): 268-74.
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. General editor, Michael Dobson and associate general editor, Stanley Wells, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): 397.
Last updated January 25, 2020
