Shakespeare On-Line -- ALL of him

[acroyear]

per testaclese:

You can now read scanned copies of all 93 quarto editions of his works, thanks to the British Library.

For those that don't know, most of the Quarto editions, unlike the folios, were published while he was still alive, and weren't necessarilly legal/official in any way. Many first editions were assembled from actors' memories (months or years after they last performed the show) and their que-texts (actors didn't get a full script, just their lines and the key-lines that they need to prompt them), not from any actual manuscript from the Bard himself. As such, many lines are simply wrong compared to the popular versions of the plays.

However, in a few lines, the first quarto version is oft the preferred. For example, the Folder Library's printing of R&J has a line from the 1st Quarto, "Too too, to hide her face, for her fan's the fairer of the two", rather than the official "for her fan's the fairer face". Zefferelli used the Folder version in his film in the 60s.

I certainly prefer the 1st Quarto's version of that line.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Quarto, folio...why do they call them by such names? It refers to the size of the pages (I suspect many here may know this, but I think it's neat trivia). From a stock page size, a folio version has the page folded in half, while a quarto has the stock page folded into fourths. There are other sizes as well, including sexto and octavo. Here is a list of page sizes.