The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing Folios, Quartos, and Publishing Publishing & Piracy The quarto shown here is a fake! The title page states that it was printed “I. Roberts” [James Roberts] in 1600. But, it was actually set from a copy of the first quarto edition (Q1,1600) in 1619 by William Jaggard for Thomas Pavier. In fact, the supposed printer, James Roberts, was already dead at the time of this quarto’s printing. This edition of Merchant – called the second quarto (Q2)—is one of nine notorious editions of Shakespeare’s plays printed in an unauthorized and aborted effort to capitalize on Shakespeare’s renown shortly after his death in 1616. University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 1 - Furness Shakespeare Collection The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing Penn’s Horace Howard Furness Library owns two more of the nine “Pavier Quartos,” King Lear and Henry V. Seventeenth-century book buyers often bound Pavier’s texts together, ironically allowing more copies of these forgeries to survive than any other early quarto editions of Shakespeare. What we would today consider a violation of intellectual property rights has given us several irreplaceable Shakespearean texts. These quartos are sources of important alternative readings of words and lines. Pavier and Jaggard had already printed and sold, as Shakespeare’s, plays that modern scholars omit from the canon of Shakespeare’s works. The concept of copyright was not yet established in their day, although the Stationer’s Company maintained a registry for print publications. If a printer-bookseller wanted to publish a text, he had to pay to secure his right to do so via the Stationer’s Register. Pavier and Jaggard did not own the rights to Merchant of Venice. Perhaps they printed it anyway—along with King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream—to shore up the lightweight list of Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean dramatic works whose rights they did own: The Whole Contention, Pericles, the Yorkshire Tragedy, Sir John Oldcastle, and a version of Henry V. The spurious publication date of 1600 lends an air of authenticity to the enterprise. University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 2 - Furness Shakespeare Collection The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing ? If a text was printed in 1619, rather than in 1600, should we be less likely to trust its accuracy? ? If a later, somewhat suspect edition contains words or lines that seem preferable to their counterparts in an earlier, “authentic” edition, should we treat them as Shakespearean? ? How does this glimpse of the early modern book trade affect our sense of the Shakespearean text? To add insult to injury, someone has written all over the text. ? Who would do such a thing? An actor? A director? An editor? And Why? ? How do these marks on Merchant differ from those on these acting copies of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet? ? What is being noted or corrected? ? Is this reader proofreading, or doing something else? University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 3 - Furness Shakespeare Collection The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing The culprit is known. He is Edward Capell, a noted 18th century editor of Shakespeare’s works. And he, too, was trying to figure out just what he was looking at. Capell (1713- 1781) worked for the Lord Chamberlain’s Office from 1749 on, reviewing plays for licensing by the British government. He published an octavo edition of Shakespeare’s works in 1768. A commentary appeared separately in 1774. As an editor of Shakespeare, Capell took what was then a revolutionary approach. Instead of basing his edition on the “received” text (the text produced most recently by his contemporaries), Capell returned to the oldest texts he could find, typically favoring quartos produced during Shakespeare’s lifetime over the First Folio and other posthumously produced editions. Capell urged Shakespeare scholars “to look into the other old editions, and to select from thence whatever improves the Author or contributes to his advancement in perfectness.” ? What kind of “perfectness” is Capell seeking after? ? Can sampling pieces of several texts result in an “improved” whole? University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 4 - Furness Shakespeare Collection The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing ? Is such a text closer to, or farther from, what Shakespeare wrote? From what his acting company performed? ? What differences does it make to choose among these texts? ? Which would be more likely to contain errors of some kind? And is Shakespeare always perfect? The Pavier quartos at Penn provide a record of how an influential editor worked. Each has markings by Capell, usually word-by-word comparisons—called collations—with other quarto editions or with the First Folio. These differences are called variants. Capell did not know that the edition he was working on, the one dated 1600 for marketing purposes, but actually printed in 1619, was actually a back-dated counterfeit. His notations show that he thought he was comparing three texts, including two distinct 1600 editions, and trying to ascertain the relationship between his copy and others. The red and black ink throughout the text indicates variants, places where he found his copy to depart from the (authentic) Q1 of 1600 and from another edition of 1637. A fly-leaf inserted at the back of the Merchant, dated 1749, explains Capell’s process, and includes a drawing of the title page of an authentic First Quarto of the play. ? What differences do you see between the copied 1600 title page and this edition’s printed one? ? Even after all that comparative work, Capell still used the First Folio version of Merchant as the basis for his own edition of the play. University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 5 - Furness Shakespeare Collection The English Renaissance in Context: Folios, Quartos & Publishing ? Why would he make such a choice? ? Modern editors for the most part have preferred the First Quarto for the task. What is gained or lost with either decision? ? Do you think that Capell would have made different decision if he had known that his copy of Merchant of Venice wasn’t “as advertised”? ? What does the saga of Thomas Pavier and Edward Capell tell you about the role that publishers and editors played then, and still play now, in the production of the “meaning” of a text? ? Of this text? University of Pennsylvania Libraries - 6 - Furness Shakespeare Collection .