The facts and inferences presented above may be summarized as follows: 1594. Titus Andronicus. Authentic text; sold by the Pembroke's Company when it disbanded in 1593. 1597. Love's Labour's Lost (?) and Romeo and Juliet. Corrupt texts; stolen by a hireling, and issued without license. Authentic texts published by Shakespeare in 1598 and 1599 respectively. Richard II and Richard III. Authentic texts; probably sold by the company in order to prevent piracies. 1598. I Henry IV. Authentic text; probably issued by the actors in order to right an unintentional wrong done to Lord Cobham. 1600. Henry V. Corrupt text; stolen by a hireling, issued without license. The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, II Henry IV, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Authentic texts; probably sold by the company in order to prevent piracies. 1602. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Corrupt text; stolen by a hireling. 1603. Hamlet. Corrupt text; stolen by a hireling, issued without license. Authentic text published by Shakespeare in 1604. 1608. Pericles. Corrupt text; stolen by stenography, issued without license. King Lear. Authentic text; possibly delivered to the publishers by the actors on an agreement to delay the issue of the play. 1609. Troilus and Cressida. Authentic text; probably from a transcript in private circulation. 1622. Othello. Authentic text; released by the actors in view of the immediately forthcoming Folio. Thus it is clear that in no instance was a Shakespearean play voluntarily surrendered by the company. The fact corroborates Heywood's statement that the actors "think it against their peculiar profit to have them come into print," and fully explains why Shakespeare himself made no effort to collect and publish his dramatic works.1 1 For a bibliography of this chapter see especially the works of A. W. Pollard cited at the end of Chapter XXVII; and also H. R. Plomer, "The Printers of Shakespeare's Plays and Poems," The Library, 1916, vii, 149; W. W. Greg, "Bad' Quartos Outside Shakespeare," ibid., 1919, x, 193; J. Dover Wilson, "The Copy for Hamlet, 1603," and "The Hamlet Transcript, 1593," ibid., 1918, ix, 153, 217; J. Dover Wilson, in the News Sheet of The Bibliographical Society, January, 1919; A. W. Pollard, A New Shakespeare Quarto, 1916; A. W. Pollard and H. C. Bartlett, A Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto, 1594–1709, 1916; H. C. Bartlett, Mr. William Shakespeare, 1922. CHAPTER XXIX THE ATTEMPTED COLLECTION OF 1619 IN 1619, three years after the death of the poet, an unscrupulous bookseller named Thomas Pavier attempted to foist upon the public a small and for the most part fraudulent collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. As a beginning towards such an enterprise he had in his possession the copyright of five plays. (1) A Yorkshire Tragedy, which he himself had impudently put forth in 1608 as "by William Shakespeare"; the deception, he felt, could again be practised. (2) Sir John Oldcastle, by Drayton, Hathaway, Munday, and Wilson, printed in 1600 as acted by the Admiral's Men. Since Sir John Falstaff was still popularly known as Sir John Oldcastle, Pavier resolved to reprint this play as Shakespeare's, hoping that the unwary public would be deceived by its title into supposing that it was Henry IV, or at least that it was from the pen of the master. (3 and 4) The Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster, and its sequel The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, two old Marlovian plays that had been refurbished by Shakespeare for the Pembroke's Men, and which, after the disbanding of that troupe, had been printed in 1594 and 1595. Later they had been further revised by Shakespeare for the Chamberlain's Company as II Henry VI and III Henry VI. The original texts of 1594 and 1595 Pavier resolved to reissue as "newly corrected and enlarged, written by William Shakespeare, Gent." (5) Henry V, in the corrupt and mangled edition of 1600. Although these were all the plays that Pavier owned, in order to increase the size of his volume he was prepared, at some risk to himself, to lay hands on three others. Pericles, which had been issued ten years earlier without license from the Stationers' Company, he decided to appropriate for his own use. And The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream he resolved to seize as derelicts in the trade; they had not been reprinted in nineteen years, their original publishers were dead, and the question of their ownership either was obscure or might at a pinch be treated by him as doubtful. Apparently he was investigating the ownership of the various Shakespearean quartos, and making an effort to secure other plays for his proposed volume. In this effort he was successful in two cases: from Nathaniel Butter and from Arthur Johnson he got permission to include King Lear and the pirated Merry Wives of Windsor. Thus in all, rightly or wrongly, he could print ten plays, which, correctly or with more or less plausible effrontery, he could issue as "by William Shakespeare": A Yorkshire Tragedy, not by Shakespeare. Pericles, not mainly by Shakespeare, and excluded by his actors from the First Folio. The Contention and The True Tragedy, old chronicles refurbished by Shakespeare. Henry V, in a corrupt text. The Merry Wives of Windsor, in a corrupt text. The Merchant of Venice. A Midsummer Night's Dream. King Lear. Having assembled his material, he engaged William Jaggard to print the book. Ten plays would, of course, hardly warrant the issue of a folio volume, but would make an attractive collection |