The Shakespeare in Quarto website now includes copies of every
edition of the dramatist’s plays printed in quarto before
the theatres closed in 1642. Fourteen editions are not among the
British Library’s own collections. Digital images of these
have been provided by the following institutions.
From
the
Folger Shakespeare
Library, Washington DC, USA:
Hamlet. Second quarto, 1604/5. A copy with the titlepage
dated 1604.
Henry IV, Part 1. Quarto 0, [1598]. The only surviving
fragment of this quarto.
Henry V. Second quarto, 1604.
Richard II. Third quarto, 1598.
Richard III. Fifth quarto, 1612. A complete copy of this
quarto.
Romeo and Juliet. Fourth quarto variant, [1622]. The titlepage
includes the words ‘Written by W. Shakespeare’.
Titus Andronicus. First quarto, 1594. The only known copy
of the first of Shakespeare’s plays to be printed.
From
the
Bodleian
Library, Oxford:
Henry IV, Part 1. Third quarto, 1604.
Richard II. Fourth quarto variant, 1608. The titlepage
has the up-to-date name of Shakespeare’s company the ‘Kings
Maiesties seruantes’.
Henry VI, Part 2. First quarto, 1594. The title is given
as The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses
of Yorke and Lancaster.
Henry VI, Part 3. First octavo, 1595. The only known copy
of this edition. The title is given as The True Tragedie of
Richard Duke of York, and the Death of Good King Henrie the Sixt.
From
the
National Library
of Scotland, Edinburgh:
Henry IV, Part 2. Quarto a, 1600. A complete copy of this
quarto.
From
Edinburgh
University Library:
Titus Andronicus. Second quarto, 1600.
These additions have been made as part of the Anglo-American
project Shakespeare
Quartos Archive which has six partner institutions.
The project is led by the Folger Shakespeare Library in the USA
and the Bodleian Library, Oxford in the UK.
The other partners are the Huntington Library, USA and the British
Library, National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library
in the UK.
It has been jointly funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities in the USA and the JISC
in the UK.