Know about the first critical edition of the works of William Shakespeare by Nicholas Rowe, published in 1709
An overview of the first critical edition of the works of William Shakespeare, edited by Nicholas Rowe and published in 1709.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0 (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] BARBARA MOWAT: Hi. I'm Barbara Mowat, Director of Research Emerita at the Folger.
Nicholas Rowe was a lawyer, who switched careers and began writing for the London stage. When he was asked to edit Shakespeare's plays in the early 1700s, he searched everywhere for Shakespeare's manuscripts, but they had already disappeared. Rowe was thus forced to base his six-volume edition on the early printed texts, the 36 plays collected in the 1623 First Folio and printed in the folios that followed, as well as the few plays he could find that had also been printed individually in small quartos.
His edition, published in 1709, made the plays available and accessible to a wide readership in many ways. Among the most important, he modernized the spelling and punctuation. He occasionally replaced a word that seemed incorrect. He standardized characters' names. And he added stage directions.
He also used material from quarto editions of Hamlet and Othello to add to or correct the folio texts. His edition became the basis of subsequent texts for many years. And many of his textual corrections and his decisions about characters' names have stood for centuries.
Nicholas Rowe was a lawyer, who switched careers and began writing for the London stage. When he was asked to edit Shakespeare's plays in the early 1700s, he searched everywhere for Shakespeare's manuscripts, but they had already disappeared. Rowe was thus forced to base his six-volume edition on the early printed texts, the 36 plays collected in the 1623 First Folio and printed in the folios that followed, as well as the few plays he could find that had also been printed individually in small quartos.
His edition, published in 1709, made the plays available and accessible to a wide readership in many ways. Among the most important, he modernized the spelling and punctuation. He occasionally replaced a word that seemed incorrect. He standardized characters' names. And he added stage directions.
He also used material from quarto editions of Hamlet and Othello to add to or correct the folio texts. His edition became the basis of subsequent texts for many years. And many of his textual corrections and his decisions about characters' names have stood for centuries.
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