Plays in print

Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays were printed during Shakespeare's lifetime, in a small, inexpensive format called a “quarto.” A quarto is a book in which each printed sheet is folded twice—in half, and then in half again—to produce four double-sided leaves, or eight pages. Quartos were sold in flimsy bindings or sometimes no bindings at all, making them vulnerable to damage and loss over the years. The early Shakespeare quartos are now extraordinarily rare; some survive in only a single copy. The texts in the quartos sometimes differ significantly from the same plays in the 1623 First Folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, which was published seven years after he died.

The first quartos of Shakespeare's plays appeared in 1594 and included Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI Part 2 (as it is now titled). Some plays, such as Richard III and Henry IV Part 1, appeared in multiple quarto editions, showing their popularity. Many of the earliest of the quartos do not include Shakespeare's name but highlight instead the acting company that first performed the play.

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1598

Love’s Labor’s Lost, first edition: One of the first instances of Shakespeare's name on a title page

William Shakespeare's name first appeared on the title pages of three plays in 1598, including this edition of Love's Labor's Lost. Fourteen copies of this edition are known to survive. The sub-title, "Newly corrected and augmented By W.

1598

Richard II, second edition

Richard II was printed in a second quarto edition in 1598, a year after its first printing. It was again published by the London bookseller Andrew Wise and printed by Valentine Simmes.

1598

Richard II, third edition

Shakespeare’s Richard II was printed in a third quarto edition in 1598, the same year as its second edition. As was the case with the first two editions, London bookseller Andrew Wise was the publisher.

1599

Romeo and Juliet, second edition

Customers browsing in the bookshops of London in 1599 would have found a new version of a popular play based on the well-known story of Romeo and Juliet.

1599

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.

1600

Titus Andronicus, second edition

This is the second edition of Titus Andronicus, printed in 1600 by James Roberts for Edward White. John Danter registered the play and printed the first edition in 1594, for White and Thomas Millington.

1600

Englands Helicon, first edition: contains a sonnet from Love's Labor's Lost ascribed to Shakespeare

Englands Helicon, a collection of poetry first printed in 1600 by John Roberts for John Flasket, includes a sonnet from act 4, scene 3 of Love’s Labor’s Lost (1598). The poem in Englands Helicon is ascribed to “W.

1600

Henry VI Part 3, second edition

This is the second edition of The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, now known as Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 3.

1600

Henry VI Part 2, second edition

The second edition of Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2 was printed as The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster in 1600, six years after the first edition.

1600

Henry IV Part 2, first edition

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.

Plays in print

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