Early texts of Shakespeare's works

[1] In chronological order, these publications were: Six of the preceding were classified as "bad quartos" by Alfred W. Pollard and other scholars associated with the New Bibliography.

It was not until 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, that Ben Jonson defied convention by issuing a folio collection of his own plays and poems.

It contained, in addition to blandishments provided by various admirers of Shakespeare, such as the dedication signed by "John Heminge and Henry Condell", 36 plays.

They included Troilus and Cressida, which was not, however, listed in the table of contents, but omitted Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen, which are now usually considered canonical.

The elder Jaggard has seemed an odd choice to many commentators, given his problematical relationship with the Shakespeare canon: Jaggard issued the suspect collection The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599 and 1612, and in 1619 printed the so-called False Folio, ten pirated or spurious Shakespearean plays, some with false dates and title pages.

To the second impression of the Third Folio (1664) he added seven plays, namely Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Locrine; The London Prodigal; The Puritan; Sir John Oldcastle; Thomas Lord Cromwell; and A Yorkshire Tragedy.

All seven of these additional plays had been published as quartos while Shakespeare was alive, but only Pericles was eventually widely accepted into the Shakespearean canon.

[7] The quartos of Pericles (1609 and 1611), The London Prodigal (1605) and A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608) were all attributed to William Shakespeare on their front pages.

The quartos of Locrine (1595), The Puritan (1607) and Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602 and 1613) were attributed to W. S. on their title pages, but Shakespeare was not the only playwright with those initials; Wentworth Smith has been put forward as another possible author of these works.

Nicholas Rowe used the Fourth Folio text as the foundation of his 1709 edition, and subsequent editors — Pope, Theobald, etc.

The title page said "written by the memorable worthies of their time: Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakspeare [sic], Gent.