The Shakespeare First Folios
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Th e Shakespeare First Folios This page intentionally left blank Th e Shakespeare First Folios A Descriptive Catalogue edited by Eric Rasmussen Professor of English, University of Nevada, USA and Anthony James West Honorary Research Fellow, University College London, UK with Donald L. Bailey, Mark Farnsworth, Lara Hansen, Trey Jansen, and Sarah Stewart © Eric Rasmussen and Anthony James West 2012 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their right to be identifi ed as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-59786-4 ISBN 978-0-230-36034-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-36034-1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 We dedicate this book to our wives, Victoria Hines and Serena Patience West This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface by Paul Werstine viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction xi User’s Guide xv Abbreviations xix Short Titles xx CATALOGUE OF FIRST FOLIOS WORLDWIDE 1 Addendum 1 to the Catalogue: 52 Sutro Library, California State Library 858 Addendum 2 to the Catalogue: Unfound, Untraced, and Destroyed Copies 866 Copies in Lee, Census, and Lee, 1906, at Present Unfound 866 Other Unfound Copies 866 Copies in Lee, Census, ‘Untraced’ (and Still Untraced) 867 Copies in Lee, Census, Destroyed 867 Annexe 1: A Summary Catalogue 868 Annexe 2: Concordance of West/Lee Numbers 873 Appendix 1: Press Variants in the First Folio 875 Appendix 2: First Folio Watermarks Inventory 883 Manuscripts and Works Cited 891 Index of First Folio Owners 909 Index 919 vii Preface It is an honour to be asked to write a preface to such a remarkable work of scholarship as Th e Shakespeare First Folios: A Descriptive Catalogue. One cannot yet imagine the many uses to which succeeding generations will put its store of information about each known and accessible copy of the Shakespeare First Folio, or Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies, of 1623. Th is catalogue celebrates the 1623 Folio by making each of its copies the object of the most meticulous description. Anthony James West and Eric Rasmussen, the Catalogue’s creators, thereby take their place beside Charlton J. K. Hinman, whose two-volume Th e Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), another celebration of the 1623 collection, was the most detailed account of the printing of a book yet accomplished. Having examined each accessible copy worldwide in situ, West and Rasmussen are able to describe all leaves of all extant volumes (recording their condition, losses and replacements, annotations, and watermarks), as well as providing descriptions of each copy’s binding and lively narratives about previous owners. Th is new information adds hugely to what we know about the history of the First Folio, an important goal of the First Folio Project. As an editor and reader of Shakespeare, I am particularly grateful to West and Rasmussen for bringing us closer to the words that Shakespeare wrote, however impossible it may be ever to attain that long-desired objective. A contribution that I would single out as their greatest gift to Shakespeareans is their signifi cant expansion of our knowledge of the extent to which press correctors have interposed themselves between manuscript printer’s copy (whether in Shakespeare’s handwriting or another’s) and the early printed texts of the plays. We have understood for some time that such knowledge would remain limited until every copy of the early printed texts had been examined and every variation in printing had been found and recorded. Th e present study of all the known and accessible copies of the First Folio takes us far down the road toward achieving such a goal because, among the early printed texts, the Folio looms so large, containing within its pages the fi rst printing of about half of playtexts we read as Shakespeare’s. Research has shown that uncorrected sheets are often very few in comparison to the (mis)corrected ones, and it has been almost impossible to fi nd and identify the uncorrected copies of sheets that display press variants. Only by examining all the known accessible copies of the First Folio, as West, Rasmussen and their team have done, could we be sure that we have recovered as many as possible of the uncorrected states of its sheets. Now that this monumental labour is complete, editors can provide Shakespeare’s readers with editions of the Folio plays based on fully informed decisions about which printed variant has the highest probability of refl ecting the manuscript from which the text was printed. Th anks to West and Rasmussen, we are closer to achieving the goal expressed by Shakespeare’s fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell in their preface to the First Folio: ‘To the great Variety of Readers’ – the goal of off ering readers Shakespeare’s plays ‘cur’d, and perfect of their limbes …, as he [Shakespeare] conceiued them’. Paul Werstine viii Acknowledgements Th e editors wish to acknowledge with gratitude the assistance and support of an infi nite variety of friends, colleagues, librarians, archivists, and owners: Hardin Aasand, Bob Allison, John F. Anderies, Anna Lou Ashby, Nicolas Barker, William P. Barlow, Jr., Timothy Barrett, Michael Basinski, Jonathan Bate, Harold Batie, Peter Beal, Terru Belanger, Abel Berland, Cynthia Becht, Charles Benson, Michael Best, David Bevington, Tom Bishop, Lois Black, Julia Blakely, Peter W. M. Blayney, Anthony Bliss, Simon Blundell, Phil Boardman, Rachel Bond, Charles Cutter Brandeis, Janice Braun, Alvan Bregman, Susan Brock, Scott P. Brown, Doug Bruster, John A. Buchtel, Sam Burridge, Joanna Byles, Suzanne Callaghan, Rebecca Cape, Jane Carr, Roger Chartier, Christopher Clarkson, Nick Clary, Helen Clish, Chris Coake, Melissa Cook, David Corson, Michael Crump, Tracey Dando, Geoff rey Day, LuEllen DeHaven, Jo Ellen McKillop Dickie, Mark Diminution, Ann Morgan Dodge, Rachel Doggett, Peter Donaldson, Ian A. Doyle, Katherine Duncan-Jones, Inge Dupont, Lars Engle, Elizabeth Ennion, Stephen Enniss, Philip Errington, Arthur Evenchik, Sherry Farnsworth, Donald Farren, Lynne Farrington, David Fenimore, Christine Ferguson, Steve Ferguson, Christine Finn, Erin Fockler, Harold Forbes, Margaret Ford, David K. Frasier, Eric Frazier, Arthur Freeman, Janet Ing Freeman, Elizabeth E. Fuller, Wayne Furman, Steven Galbraith, Valerie Gillispie, Moira Goff , Warwick Gould, Jan Graffi us, Anthony Grafton, Stephen Grant, Genie Guerard, Werner Gundersheimer, Anette I. Hagan, Carter Hailey, Wayne Hammond, Marianne Hansen, James Harmer, Kate Harris, Sarah Hartwell, Christianne Henry, Richard High, Brian Hillyard, Sheila Hingley, Pam Hines, Vicky Hines, Th eodore Hoff man, Ernst Hongimann, Valerie Hotchkiss, Trevor Howard-Hill, Rachel Howarth, Marvin Hunt, Clive Hurst, Scott Jacobs, Mary Kay Johnsen, Peter Jones, Stephen C. Jones, Lucy Kamenova, Bob Karrow, David Scott Kastan, Paula Kennedy, Arthur Kinney, Bernice W. Kliman, Jamie P. Kohler, Jim Kuhn, Richard Kuhta, Th omas Lamb, Rosalind Larry, Daniel Larsen, Caryn Lazzuri, Ad Lerrintveld, Robert Lerner, Michelle Light, Karen Limper-Herz, Richard Linenthal, Katharine Liu, Willilam H. Loos, Stephan Loewentheil, Robert MacLean, Brian Maggs, Giles Mandelbrote, James Mardock, Philippa Marks, Sonia Massai, Stephen Massey, David McKitterick, Gordon McMullan, Ralph Maud, James Maynard, Andrea Mays, Renate Mesmer, Sylviane Messerli, Emilie Meyer, Rick Michaelson, Robert G. Minte, Maria Isabel Molestina, Th omas J. Morrissey, Frank Mowery, Barbara Mowett, Andrew Murphy, Paul Needham, Rupert Neelands, Mitsuo Nitta, William Noel, Erica Nordheimer, Lord Northhampton, Nancy Nuzzo, Stephen Orgel, Harold Otness, Ricard Ovenden, Susan Palmer, Marilyn Palmeri, Susan Park, Stephen Parks, Gail Kern Paster, Maggie Patton, David Pearson, Carl Peterson, Dee Anna Phares, Amy Pickard, Oliver Pickering, J. R. Piggot, Karma Pippin, Maggie Pogue, Nicholas Poole-Wilson, John Powell, Sue Povey,