The rectangular page you are looking at is the first page. Flip it to the left and the sheet will open onto the second and third pages. Flip the third page to the left and you will see the fourth page. The crease will now be on the right. Next, imagine that you fold other sheets of paper the same way for a book with sixty-four pages. You would have sixteen folded sheets of paper in all. You would then open all of them and place the second folded sheet on the first, the third sheet on the second, the fourth sheet on the third, and so on.
In this arrangement, the page numbers would be as follows. First folded sheet: 1 and 2; 63 and Second folded sheet: 3 and 4; 61 and Third folded sheet: 5 and 6; 59 and Fourth folded sheet: 7 and 8; 57 and Fifth folded sheet: 9 and 55 and Sixth folded sheet: 11 and 12; 53 and Seventh folded sheet: 13 and 14; 51 and The plays printed originally in quarto format were branded fraudulent by the editors of the First Folio, Heminge and Condell, who wrote in the Preface to their collection that fans of Shakespeare's works had been cheated by "diverse stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds of injurious imposters that expos'd them.
Heminge and Condell were right to be concerned about the integrity of Shakespeare's great works. The flaws in some of the quartos are wretched. Take for example the opening of Hamlet's famous soliloquy: "To be, or not to be: that is the question" 3. In the quarto version of we have, "To be or not to be.
Aye all. Heminge and Condell's accusations were taken very seriously, and early scholars believed without question that the First Folio was the only authoritative Shakespearean manuscript, and that "all of the quartos were poor texts, dishonestly obtained without the consent of the company for which Shakespeare was writing" Holzknecht Thus, the quartos were relegated to the heap of pirated material.
However, in the late nineteenth century the academic community began to challenge the claims made by the editors of the First Folio and reassess the validity of the quartos. Pollard, whose 'Shakespeare Folios and Quartos' and 'Shakespeare's Fight with the Pirates and the Problems of the Transmission of His Text' , revised are fundamental studies, they began an investigation of publishing contradictions in Shakespeare's day and a more thorough examination of the quartos and folios themselves.
As a result, the modern belief is that, far from being the ruling practice in the Elizabethan book-mart, piracy was exceptional, and that Elizabethan printers, taken as a whole, were neither exceptionally stupid nor exceptionally dishonest" Holzknecht The remaining plays are classified as "good" or authentic quartos.
The fullest accounts of F1 are W. View all related items in Oxford Reference ». Search for: 'folios and quartos, Shakespearian' in Oxford Reference ». All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.
Oxford Reference. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Performers of the play would recount what had been said on stage. Audience members often wrote down what they had seen presented. As anyone remotely familiar with evidence, crime scenes, and personal testimony, will tell you: what someone thinks they saw or heard can often vary widely from the actual fact. It was no different for cataloging Shakespeare.
When it came to personal testimony about what had transpired on stage, actors, audience members, and even the aristocracy who had written home to report on the plays they attended while visiting England, all varied in their retelling of the same event. Which is why Heminge and Condell were able to make such a strong case against the quartos and in favor of their First Folio as the first authorized publication of Shakespeare.
Very much indeed depended on reputation. Therefore, the copies of the Shakespeare play that you pick up at a bookstore, on amazon, or from your local library will contain textual variations from the original play, which are designed to take into account modern spelling and language. Additionally, editors are charged with knowing the history of the play itself, and the many versions available of that play, so they can select the passages and phrases, which are considered the most accurate.
It gets even trickier when the play is translated out of English into other languages. Despair not, dear reader!
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