Shakespeare’s plays began to be printed in 1594, probably with his tragedy Titus Andronicus. This appeared as a small cheap pamphlet called a quarto. Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays had appeared in quarto editions by the time of his death in 1616. Two of the plays, Pericles and Two Noble Kinsmen, only exist in their quarto versions and were omitted from the First Folio collected edition of 1623. The only Shakespeare manuscript known to survive is a section of the little known collaborative work Sir Thomas More. For all his other plays, the printed texts are our only sources and the quarto editions are the ones closest to his time. Some are thought to preserve either his working drafts (foul papers) or his fair copies. Others are thought to record versions remembered by actors who performed the plays, providing information about staging practices in Shakespeare’s day.

Discovering Shakespeare with the British Library and Vodafone

Hamlet