Printing Shakespeare's First Folio

[@Northcountry1926]

Top Shelf - New Subscriber - Thank you very much! 🇨🇦🇬🇧 Happy New Years 2024

[@Sm0700537]

I would very much like to hear this explanation. Could you reissue with some volume?

[@oscarjimenez5835]

Gracias desde Durango, México.

[@mancroft]

Speak up! What? Didn't hear you.

[@apollocobain8363]

02:51 the Pavier quarto explained

[@ronroffel1462]

He is mistaken about the "tradition" of putting plays into folio formats (1:19). Ben Jonson's Works of 1616 was the first folio edition of any playwright's works. It was a "dry run" for the First Folio to see whether it would sell on the one hand, and whether Jonson could pull off editing such a book on the other. The fact that neither the alleged author nor his family had any input or cared about the First Folio is a tip-off that the traditional attribution is wrong (2:19). The "false folio" (3:05) as it is called was not based on the fully-edited manuscripts. Those would come out in 1623. It took nine years for the "successful" edition (3:54) to be followed by the Second Folio. How is that "successful", if less than 800 copies sold out after such a long time? Surely you would expect that if it was so popular, an edition would have come out sooner, not so much later. It would have made better sense to get William Stanley's successor to print the First Folio in competition with Jaggard's "false folio" since Stanley published Jonson's collection in 1616 (6:08) This was Jaggard competing with himself which is odd. The engraving has long been seen as a joke by many. If Droeshout (9:10) was commissioned to do a portrait or likeness of the writer, why is the head too large? Why is there no neck? Why does the doublet consist of two left panels - the one on our left is the back of the one on our right - and why does it appear so flat? Those are questions that cannot be answered by saying Droeshout was just starting out in his career. During the same period, Martin Droeshout the Younger engraved a portrait of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, so these "mistakes" were intentional. Artists did not get such commissions for royalty without having exceptional skill. The term "reader" (10:00) back then meant someone who figures things out, like puzzles. University and college students in the UK still ask each other what they are "reading". "I am reading history." "I am reading economics." So, if Dr. Miles thinks the term is addressing us as casual readers, he is likely mistaken. Jonson's poem also has the following: "Wherein the Graver had a strife / With Nature to out-do the life / Oh, could he but have drawn his wit / As well in brass, as he hath hit [hid] / His face..." which is a curious way to say the Figure, as Jonson calls the picture, is a true likeness. It's interesting that in this copy, the Epistle Dedicatory is missing (10:32) which addresses not the readers, but William Herbert the 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his younger brother Philip the 1st Earl of Montgomery. Both men were closely linked to the most viable candidate for authorship since the former was engaged to the writer's middle daughter and the latter married his youngest daughter in 1604. Those men were likely the primary patrons of the First Folio. Jonson was patronized by both men and their mother Mary Sidney Herbert (sister of Sir Philip Sidney) which is compelling evidence Jonson wrote the Epistle Dedicatory and edited the First Folio. After all, he had the necessary experience editing his on 1616 folio edition. The List of Actors tells us that the actors were in "all of these plays" (11:50). How could they have been if at least eleven of the names were dead before the 18 previously unpublished - and un-performed - plays including Anthony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth were in the First Folio? Is there some deception going on? The Waldham copy also is missing the table of contents - called the Catalogue of Plays (11:55) - which tells me that the book is missing a signature or gathering (aka a quire) of pages in the front matter. In my estimation, that is one enigma which should be addressed when discussing this particular First Folio. Here is another enigma which has not been addressed. If Troilus and Cressida has been inserted into the First Folio (12:36), then why does its title page share the same feature as the other title pages? All of the pages, as Horace Hart mentioned in a letter to Sir Sidney Lee for the 1902 facsimile edition of the First Folio, have center column dividers which are made up of small bits of metal instead of long strips of brass which nearly every one of the 900-plus page book has. That is one anomaly which cannot be answered sufficiently if you take into account that there were dozens of people working in Jaggard's shop: placing all of those tiny pieces of metal into these pages would have taken a lot of time which would have been better used getting the compositors to use longer strips of brass. My question is: were the title pages set before the rest of the text and stored until a time when the publisher felt the book was ready to go to print? The argument at 13:00 that the Prologue for Romeo and Juliet is missing because they had to take out that single page is wrong. All pages in early books are typeset along with other pages, then the pages are folded to the sizes the books require. You would have had to remove more than just one page in order to remove the Prologue, not just one. At 13:50 Miles says that the First Folio was printed on rag paper which he assumes was of inferior quality (13:59). Not so. One hundred percent rag paper is of far superior quality to even the best pulp-based paper we have today. It has no PH imbalance if it is made properly and holds ink fairly well. Extant books of the period and earlier attest to that fact of using rag paper. Otherwise we would not have any First Folios today. Now why would the publishers of the First Folio go all over Europe to get rag paper from other manufacturers if the paper was of inferior quality (14:10)? To have those sort of connections would have meant the publishers had extensive links to printers throughout Europe and there is little to no evidence they did. But there is evidence the patrons of the First Folio did. William Herbert and his brother Philip were of high enough status that they probably had people who could source out those "exotic" paper reams from the continent. About the "errors" in the front matter (17:04): they are there for a reason. So are the mis-numbered pages in the table of contents. They are purposely inserted to provide clues to the real author's identity. But according to the conventional narrative, the real author came from Stratford. The First Folio provides compelling evidence that is not true. I believe Cymbeline was put at the end of the First Folio as a political statement (25:28). At the time, King James I wanted to marry off Prince Henry to the Spanish Infanta which caused a huge rift in Parliament between those who approved of the alliance and those who did not. The patrons of the First Folio disapproved of England making an alliance with Spain since it would have put England under the heel of Rome again and few people wanted that. Cymbeline's ending is about England being on an equal footing with Rome and a peaceful existence. That is the political statement and the reason why Cymbeline was put at the end of the book: it is a message of hope.

[@yorgoskontoyiannis6570]

>neither the alleged author nor his family had any input Shakespeare was dead at the time of publication, as was his wife... >The "false folio" was not based on the fully-edited manuscripts Neither was (most of) the first folio--most of it is from foul papers (unedited), or from earlier quartos, or from prompt-books. What texts individual plays were set using is a notoriously difficult problem. >Those are questions that cannot be answered by saying Droeshout was just starting out in his career They certainly can. It's flat and the head is big because wasn't a very good artist. Just look at what he did to Jeffrey Hudson. It's funny that you mention the lack of neck because I have yet to see a Droeshout engraving where the subject actually has one lol >This was Jaggard competing with himself which is odd "Dear Mr. Jaggard, would you, a printer experienced in collecting and publishing Shakespeare plays, like to help is print the collected works? You would have access to much higher-quality texts and a cut of the money." Mystery solved >The term "reader" back then meant someone who figures things out, like puzzles Wrong; I'd love to see an OED sense to back this up. Read *can* mean interpret, but the analogy is "to study as if by reading"--thus we get such expressions as "read the stars." The sense of "reading history at university" derives from the standard sense "to study"--think the phrase "read up on." >which is a curious way to say the Figure, as Jonson calls the picture, is a true likeness That's not what Johnson's poem is saying in those lines at all... The first two lines you quote ("the Graver had a strife / With Nature to outdo the life") just indicate that the engraver tried to make his work realistic, and the last three ("O, could he but have drawn his wit / As well in brass, as he hath hit / His face") are complimenting Shakespeare's intelligence. The literal meaning is "if the engraver could have contained Shakespeare's genius in this painting, it would be the greatest painting ever." >William Herbert the 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his younger brother Philip the 1st Earl of Montgomery. Both men were closely linked to the most viable candidate for authorship since the former was engaged to the writer's middle daughter and the latter married his youngest daughter in 1604 Looks like you fucked up the names here; maybe you mean Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke, married to Susane de Vere? William Herbert was married to Mary Herbert, daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury... In any case this paragraph provides no evidence of anything: Johnson had a patron, and those same patrons are mentioned in the dedication--ergo Johnson EDITED THE WHOLE FIRST FOLIO. smh >The List of Actors tells us that the actors were in "all of these plays" No it doesn't. Bro. It literally reads, "The Names of the Principall Actors in all these plays." Can you get any more clear than that? "These are the names of the actors who played the important roles in the plays which follow." Come onnnn >So are the mis-numbered pages in the table of contents. They are purposely inserted to provide clues to the real author's identity. But according to the conventional narrative, the real author came from Stratford Dude like 800 people TOTAL bought this book in a space of 9 years, as you so helpfully point out. They didn't even know if they were gonna get another print run. They were not expecting millions of people to know about the existence of this book and pour over all these totally insignificant details. You really think they went into numerological effort to put CLUES in the TABLE OF CONTENTS, and that this somehow indicates something about the authorship? seriously? If you're going to hide it this well, (like, to the point that it's supposedly hidden in anagrams of single lines in plays of several thousand lines), why bother leaving clues at all? But just for the avoidance of doubt, I have actually myself found some serious clues that point to the fact that Shakespeare wrote all these plays--it's hidden real deep, so you have to really squint to find it. Okay are you ready? If you look on the first page of the First Folio, right at the very top, in these tiny little letters, it reads MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

[@ZZSmithReal]

@@yorgoskontoyiannis6570 Typical Stratfordian response. Uncivil, intemperate, and the desperate need to attack the messenger. You do yourself no favors, "Dude", acting like a churlish bore. Grow up.

[@apollocobain8363]

An excellent summary of his oversights and errors to which I can only add that Heminges and Condell had neither the money nor the rights to produce the First Folio. The Stationer's Register shows the chain of rights ownership of all the previously published plays. Per the Folger's Ian Gadd: "When Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount entered the First Folio in November 1623, they could only enter those works for which no previous right to publish had been asserted, and had to negotiate agreements with publishers who already owned the rights to publish specific plays."

[@ronroffel1462]

@@apollocobain8363 I agree. Heminges and Condell would also probably not have known to include in the Epistle allusions to classical works. I believe that at least one line paraphrases Plutarch, which was not a writer normally taught at grammar schools of the time. George Steevens, the 18th century Shakespeare scholar was the first to propose that the letter To the Great Variety of Readers was written by Ben Jonson because it uses phrases from Jonson's writing, including Timbers or Discoveries which was not published until 1641, long after the First Folio was printed. Unless Heminges and Condell had access to Jonson's commonplace book, they would not have been able to write those parts of the letter. During the 19th century more top scholars agreed including the editors of the Cambridge edition of the collected works. If that letter was written by Jonson, it is reasonable to assume he wrote the main Epistle as well.

[@apollocobain8363]

@@ronroffel1462 I am very interested in the idea that during production of the Pavier quarto, ~1619, they ran into issues that were rectified to produce the 1623 folio. Quality and rights being two of them. The modern focus on Heminges and Condell seems fueled by the desire, or need, to avoid discussion of the dedicatees and others who had the means, motives and money to underwrite and produce the 1623 printing. Sidenote: just read a reprint of this: The Graphic and Historical Illustrator (1834) had an intriguing article on the kind of English spoken in Somerset, two counties over from Stratford-Upon-Avon in Warwickshire, during the eighteenth century....(which)...raises the question of how William of Stratford could have been understood when he moved to London. " Whole different dialect in 1834 so it would have been far more distinct in 1594. shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/provincial-dialect-in-shaksperes-day/