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The Shakespeare Shoppe - it's an Elizabethan thing ...™ > William Shakespeare T-shirts & Gifts > William Shakespeare T-shirts & Gifts > Shakespeare Folio & Quarto T-shirts & Gifts
In 1623 the first collection of William Shakespeare's
works was published, seven years after his death (in 1616). A
group of Shakespeare's fellow actors compiled thirty-six
of Shakespeare's plays, including laudations from his contemporaries
(such as Ben Johnson), and this published collection was
known as the First Folio. The famous frontpiece
featuring the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare
comes from this First Folio edition. Eighteen of the plays
were previously unpublished, but the other eighteen had been published
in Quarto form (The word ''quarto'' refers to a
book made up of sheets of paper folded twice to form four leaves
of equal size, or eight pages), during Shakespeare's lifetime
as single plays.
There are various Quartos of Shakespeare's plays
- known as "good" and "bad" quartos.
"Good" quartos came from an authoritative, reliable
manuscript (such as Shakespeare's own original manuscript
or the official prompt copy from the play itself), whereas
"bad" quartos were full of errors in the text,
such as incorrect speech headings, repeated lines, missing lines
and so on. The reason for the "bad" quartos has
been put down to publishers wanting to cash in on Shakespeare's
popularity and getting hold of copies of his plays either
transcribed during a performance by someone in the crowd or written
down from memory by one of the actors who had performed
the work. This was possible due to copyright, or "rights
of the author", being unheard of at the time.
In addition to the First Folio, there is a Second
Folio (published in 1632), Third Folio (published in
1663, reprinted in 1664) and Fourth Folio (published in
1685). The Second Folio was essentially a reprint of the
First Folio with some modernisation of the text and correction
of errors such as stage directions and character names. The Third
Folio (also known as the "fake" folio) had
further corrections to the Second Folio, but also managed
to add errors that had not previously been present in either the
First or Second Folios. It also introduced seven
new plays - six of which are now not believed to have been
written by Shakespeare. The Fourth Folio (and last
folio printed) modernised the text further, but also added
new errors not previously in earlier editions.
We are collecting images of the frontpieces from the
original William Shakespeare folios and quartos
printed during the 16th and 17th centuries, and, after
digitally restoring them, have made them available here on t-shirts,
posters, prints, greeting cards, mugs and gifts. Click on a design to see it on a wide range of products including t-shirts, prints, gifts and more!
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