Shakespeare’s Authorial Role in Publishing the First Folio

In 1623, the First Folio of Shakespearean dramas sees publication and, although imperfect, the thirty-six volume compilation proves foundational for subsequent textual renderings. Almost four-hundred years later, debate remains among bibliographic scholars over what role, if any, Shakespeare played in the Folio’s publication. The debate centers on questions of ownership or authorship. Considering the theatrical culture and copyright laws during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, prominent scholars maintain that Shakespeare lacked an authorial concept of his dramas. Thus, consequently, adherents to such a theory hold that the playwright’s personal interest and involvement in printing his dramas was negligible — as a lacking print quality may support. A clearer consideration of the legal, economic, professional, and personal realities that Shakespeare faced during the printing reveals that the dramatist played an authorial role in the First Folio’s publication.

Bibliographical scholars often question Shakespeare’s interest in printing his dramas partly because they widely conclude that Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatists and theater companies viewed publication a secondary matter. The argument is plausible considering that, primarily, drama is a medium meant for performance rather than reading. Thus, bibliographic scholar Joseph Lowenstein observes that “performance was the culture’s…primary means of dramatic publication” (102). Nonetheless, a play requires a script before performance is possible. Normally, playwrights wrote on commission for theater companies, selling their scripts “for a flat fee, usually of six to ten pounds” (ibid). Lowenstein and Elizabethan classicist F.P. Wilson maintain that, in selling a manuscript to a theater company, a playwright essentially sold any authorial rights that he could potentially claim on the work (102; 172). A dramatic work became a viable property that required protections only in an acting company’s possession (Lowenstein, 102). Outside theater ownership, potential rights on a drama remained impotent.

According to Lowenstein and Wilson, Elizabethan theater companies essentially assumed the rights of dramatists, excepting those that, like Shakespeare, owned company shares. John Feather clarifies that share-holders, like Shakespeare, owned the Chamberlain’s Men, a joint-stock company; whereas, individuals, such as Philipp Henslowe, solely owned competing companies (ibid). In acquiring a drama, a theater company claimed the right to its “exclusive performance,” and if they wished, the right to sell their unique manuscript copy of the play for publication (Lowenstein, 102). Theatrically speaking, the playwright seldom saw authorial recognition — the acting company considered him “our poet” rather than the “author” (ibid). In introductions and prologues, an actor usually attributed creative authority on behalf of his fellow performers — the play is “ours” (ibid). Thus, performance, at this stage in Elizabethan drama, clearly holds precedent over the playwright’s scribal work — unless, possibly, as in Shakespeare’s case, the playwright is also an actor and a company shareholder.

In terms of textual publication, most playwrights, excepting large joint-stock owners, enjoyed fewer rights and protections than the theater companies. Early or pre-copyright laws protected the printer, publisher, or book-seller rather than the author — whether that is the playwright or theater-company (Hongimann, 945). In opting for print publication, a theater-company first yielded their exclusive right on a play’s theatrical performance (Lowenstein, 104).

Furthermore, under such laws, a publisher essentially subsumed a theater-company’s authorial rights to a work — rights that the theater-company themselves likely first acquired from a commissioned playwright (Lowenstein, 105). Thus, in effect, Elizabethan and Jacobean era copy “protections” twice remove, abstract, the dramatist from any authorial relation to his theatrical creation. Thus, in light of such inadequate copy-protections, we can understand the aforementioned theory that Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatists and theater companies viewed publication a secondary matter.

John Feather gives statistical support for the theory that “publication was of infinitesimal significance to playwrights and theatrical companies” (468). He compares the rate of publication for two prominent theater-companies — the Admiral’s Men and the King’s Men — over a fifteen-year period. Feather explains that in fifteen-years (1590–1605), the Admiral’s Men published as many plays, eighteen, as they introduced into their repertory in one year, between June 1594-June 1595 (ibid). Likewise, the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men published a little less than twice that amount, thirty-two, over a fifteen year period (1597–1612) (ibid). Nonetheless, an infrequent rate of publication is in itself inadequate evidence for the claim that dramatists and theatrical-companies viewed textual publication a secondary matter. A closer examination of the realities that attended the book-trade complicates generalizations regarding the theatrical world’s view towards textual publication.

First, a closer examination of the aforementioned copy protection laws that Elizabethan/Jacobean theatrical-companies operated under indicates that good reasons cautioned against pursuing publication, even if they desired that option. Copy protection laws rendered theatrical companies nearly unable to successfully claim any wrongdoings against printers or publishers. Such wrongdoings included the printing of “corrupt,” “inaccurate or incomplete texts” — often pirated copies (Feather, 471). Feather notes that the book-trade treated a corrupt text, often a pirated copy, the same as a “perfectly normal copy” (469). Under the eras’ copy protection laws, malpractice or piracy occurred only if one corrupted or plagiarized a text entered in the Stationers’ Register (ibid). Thus, since Crown law essentially reserved registration rights to Stationers’ Company members, only that constituency of printers, publishers, and book-sellers received authorial protections (Feather, 464).

Once an author — including a playwright or theater company — sold a manuscript to a stationer, the printer or publisher essentially assumed authorial rights on the text. Such rights include the right to manipulate a text, since the stationer now owns the work. Likewise, the law enabled a stationer to print a pirated copy on the condition that the text is a new Register entry — a “unique”, “original,” copy as the Stationer’s Company understood the terms (Feather, 472). Nonetheless, both Feather and Lowenstein explain, registration prevented unauthorized printings among other stationers and manuscript scriveners (471; 105). Thus, “an astute author” could use registration in order to prevent further illicit copying (Feather, 471). Nevertheless, Honigmann notes, this method, “blocking” or “staying,” required a well-disposed stationer, one interested in protecting the integrity of his investment (940). In actuality, many stationers, as Shakespeare learned, lacked the required disposition to print and publish a quality textual work.

A market of “unscrupulous stationers,” as Hongimann describes them, readily accepted pirated copies and/or hastily printed, inaccurate, ones seeking to gain “a quick profit” (939).

Opportunistic and less skilled publishers sought to profit on demands for popular plays — both ones in and out of performance. Normally, once a drama’s “drawing power began to subside,” a theatrical-company opted the work for textual publication (Lowenstein, 104). Thus, demands for popular in-performance dramas, ones currently holding the stage, likely surpassed demands for plays that lost their drawing appeal. According to Lowenstein, disgruntled actors “down on their luck,” likely pirated popular in-performance plays in most cases (105). Shakespeare’s works fell into the hands of both unscrupulous stationers and pirates (disgruntled actors?) on several occasions, yet the evidence indicates that he fought such injurious forces.

The circulation of pirated and corrupt texts plagued Shakespeare’s theatrical career fairly early on and continued in both frequent and sporadic spells. In 1594, a notorious “disreputable printer,” John Danter, issued a corrupt print of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and three years later “issued the ‘first quarto’ of Romeo and Juliet” — both thoroughly “bad” texts (Hongimann, 939). Hongimann notes that nearly “half of Shakespeare’s plays were published before the First Folio,” before 1623, many of which were pirated, corrupt, or poorly printed (ibid). Shakespeare, despite accusations of idle indifference, used numerous mechanisms in attempts to prevent the circulation of such texts. For example, Shakespeare appealed to the company patron (Lord Chamberlain) for intervention, attempted to “block” or “stay” fraudulent printings via registration, and issued corrected texts (Hongimann, 940). Yet, Hongimann notes, none of these mechanisms proved particularly effective since Shakespeare relied on others to “negotiate with the stationers and check their texts” (ibid).

Does Shakespeare’s apparently disengaged relation to the printing process indicate a lack of interest towards publication? The lacking quality in the “good quartos” — amended publications of Love’s Labour’s Lost (1598), Romeo and Juliet (1599), Hamlet (1604) — apparently verifies indifference on Shakespeare’s part (Hongimann, 939). Indeed, Hongimann remarks that these “‘corrected texts’ included so many misprints and mishaps that no author could have been satisfied” (ibid). Misprints and mishaps prevalent in both “bad” and “good” quartos include lines attributed to wrong characters, inaccurate lines, misaligned text and missing lines, texts, and scenes. Likewise, the First Folio, although an improvement over the “bad” and “good” quartos, contains “blank pages and other anomalies” common to early prints (Hongimann, 938). Nonetheless, the untidy confusion of Shakespearean texts may, to a degree, reflect traits that characterize the dramatist’s “habits as a very fluent writer” rather than an indifference towards print (Hongimann, 943).

Likewise, Hongimann clarifies that contemporary notions of literary and grammatical tidiness differ from ones “generally accepted four hundred years ago” (940). Yet, both Shakespeare’s untidy literary genius and different textual standards proper to former times fail to completely account for the conditions that mark even the “good quartos.”

If even the “good quartos” were blotched so severely that, as above quoted, “no author could have been proud of them,” then certainly such texts were inexcusable for Shakespeare. Theories that Shakespeare cared less for his dramas than his poems or that he viewed his dramatic career strictly a business matter, if true, possibly explain the deficient print quality. Hongimann considers, yet quickly dismisses the first theory, while F.P. Wilson defends the latter. Hongimann asserts that Elizabethan and Jacobean culture exalted Shakespeare a masterful dramatist and thus it is impossible that he lacked an awareness of his theatrical genius (941). Indeed, E.K. Chambers quotes Shakespeare’s contemporary Francis Meres’ praise of the dramatist as the “most excellent” English comedian and tragedian “for the stage” (193). Thus, it appears unlikely that Shakespeare believed his dramas — favorably likened by Meres to the classical Latin playwrights Platus and Senecca — lacked any artistic currency (ibid).

Arguments, like Wilson’s, that render Shakespeare’s relation to his dramas a mere business concern center on concepts of authorship prevalent in Elizabethan/Jacobean theatrical culture. As aforementioned, Elizabethan/Jacobean theatrical-companies normally attributed authorship on behalf of the performers rather than the playwright — the dramatist is their poet rather than the author. Thus, Wilson argues that Shakespeare, a shareowner in the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men, partly owned his play as a company shareholder rather than a dramatist (172). Shakespeare viewed his authorship or ownership, according to Wilson, in strictly business, rather than artistic, terms. Yet, Mere, Shakespeare’s contemporary, in his above quoted praise, specifically likens’ Shakespeare — rather than the Chamberlain’s Men — to great ancient dramatists­. Further firsthand evidence indicates that Shakespeare’s authorship held more artistic and theatrical currency rather than the financial kind.

In the First Folio’s introduction, the texts’ editors John Heminge, Richard Burbage and Henry Condell — Shakespeare’s theatrical colleagues — refer to Shakespeare as “the Author” [emphasis added] (Chambers, 229). As Chambers indicates, the editors lament that, against wishes (whose wishes?), the author is unable oversee “his owne writings” since “death imparted [him] from that right” (ibid). Clearly, the editors recognize Shakespeare’s authorship and, thus, consequently, his authorial right to oversee his writings. Did Shakespeare wish to exercise his authorial right in the First Folio’s publication? Hongimann notes that the introductory text itself leaves that question unanswered — it is unclear whether Heminge, Burbrage, and Condell refer to Shakespeare’s wish, their own, or the company’s (951). Nonetheless, in the First Folio introduction, the editors clearly recognize Shakespeare, not the company, “the Author” and give his authorial rights precedence.

Thus, considering the above facts and analysis, a question reemerges: what accounts for Shakespeare’s apparent disinterest in investing his theatrical currency in textual publication? A proper consideration of Shakespeare’s responsibilities — professional and personal — helps clarify what appears indifference on the dramatist’s part. Hongimann notes that “from the 1590s he was a very busy man;” Shakespeare’s various professional — “sharer, housekeeper, actor and dramatist” — as well as personal and familial responsibilities likely engaged most of his time (ibid). His familial obligations, especially after his father’s death in 1601, required attendance in Stratford and thus periodically kept him away from London’s business district and consequently the publishing houses (ibid). Thus, Shakespeare often relied on others, possibly reluctantly, to “negotiate with the stationers and check their texts” because personal responsibilities elsewhere required his attendance.

A sporadic reemergence of pirated Shakespearean texts occurred during a period of particular familial concern in the author’s life. In September 1608, Shakespeare’s long-ill mother passed and her death likely required the dramatist to oversee familial affairs (Hongimann,941). In 1609, three quartos — Troilus and Cressida, Pericles, and the Sonnets — escaped, each contained “some signs of piracy” (ibid). Likewise, in 1608, three other quartos — King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra­, and a registered Pericles — appeared “in danger of escaping” (ibid). Thus, Hongimann reasonably induces that Shakespeare’s absence gave pirates opportunity to circulate their corrupt texts (ibid). After an initial wave in the late 1590s, Shakespeare successfully suppressed piracy until this episode in 1609 (ibid).

As aforementioned, an initial wave of corrupt texts hit in the late 1590s — most corrupted and/or pirated Shakespearean texts circulated during this period. This period marked Shakespeare’s first encounters with the publishing world and thus likely reflects an inexperienced author dealing in an unfamiliar market. Likewise, Lowenstein notes that “a lively market in printed plays” emerged in the late 1590s — thus, the initial tumult in demand likely prompted an ungovernable piracy market (104). The absence of piracy following the “good quartos” until a sporadic reemergence in 1609 indicates that Shakespeare attained a handle on the publishing trade’s dealings. As aforementioned, pirated texts reemerged when familial responsibilities required Shakespeare’s prolonged absence from London and thus the stationers. After 1609, until his death in 1617, Shakespeare prevented further piracy; an accomplishment considering the substantial works that “remained unpublished” (Hongimann, 941–2).

Shakespeare likely held an awareness that some of his finest dramas — works that included Macbeth¸ Antony and Cleopatra¸ The Winter’s Tale — remained unpublished and evidently desired to save their publication for the First Folio. Hongimann notes that Folio’s were expensive investments and thus more likely generated a publisher’s best efforts than an inexpensive quarto (945). Yet, if publisher’s were more likely to treat a folio more precisely and less hurriedly than a quarto, then how do we explain the aforementioned “blank pages and other anomalies” that mark the First Folio? Once again, personal and external realities illuminate the apparent contradiction.

Shakespeare’s declining health and the Globe Theater’s incineration coupled with the extensive time a folio text’s assembly requires account for the publication of a flawed First Folio. The publishing of Shakespeare’s First Folio occurred roughly over a year, 1622–23 (Hongimann, 937). Normally, a properly printed and assembled folio required numerous years. For example, the stationary work on the first folio of Ben Jonson’s Workes began in 1612 and lasted around four-years before the volume’s publication in 1616 (Rickard, 207). Thus, the errors that mark the Shakespeare’s First Folio are unsurprising, considering that the stationers printed what is normally a multi-year endeavor in a single year. The above-mentioned circumstances indicate, or at least suggest, that the playwright’s (eventually unfulfilled) desire to see the quartos publication in his lifetime, rather than a lack of diligence, prompted a hastened textual work.

Hongimann makes the very plausible suggestion that the Globe Theater’s incineration on June 29, 1613 provoked Shakespeare to expedite the First Folio’s construction (944). Shakespeare’s manuscripts survived, yet the incident, coupled with the dramatist’s declining health, likely inspired the realization that unpublished works might never see textual incarnation — at least not in the author’s lifetime (ibid). Thus, possibly, once Shakespeare realized the unlikelihood of surviving the folio’s publication, he entrusted this endeavor to Heminge, Burbage, and Condell (Hongimann, 947).

The Folio’s printing began, as above-mentioned, five years after Shakespeare’s death, yet such stationary work is only half the process. Before a theatrical-company registered a work, especially an extensive one, they first addressed preliminary arrangement issues. A company chose what plays to include, the manuscripts to base the transcriptions on (multiple manuscripts usually existed), and how to order the text’s physical structure (Hongimann, 937). Thus, work on the First Folio likely began well before 1622, although the printing itself was comparatively hurried. Shakespeare’s inability to preside over the First Folio’s publication and his declining health in what were likely the earliest of the preliminary years (roughly 1612–17) may account for confusion concerning the text’s content and arrangement.

Heminge, Burbage, and Condell accepted the unenviable cares and pains (as they describe) of overseeing the First Folio’s publication, “the Author by death departed from that right” (Chambers, 229). Considering their limitations, namely the author’s absence, the editors constructed the most “authorized” First Folio possible (Hongimann, 951).

In summation, Shakespeare played as an authorial role in the First Folio’s publication as legal, economic, professional, and personal realities allowed. Bibliographic scholarship often myopically focuses on data-based facts rather than flesh and blood realities. A closer examination of such flesh and blood facts illuminates a Shakespeare who, like his contemporaries, viewed his dramatic work in an authorial light. Likewise, such realities indicate a Shakespeare who wished to exercise his authorial right to see his dramas in a substantial textual incarnation. Although flawed, the First Folio played a crucial role in granting Shakespeare’s wish that “not marble, nor gilded stone” shall outlive his theatrical creations (Sonnet 5, 11. 1–2).

Works Cited

Chambers, E.K. . William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. Print.

Feather, John. “From rights in Copies to Copyright: The Recognition of Authors’ Rights in English Law and Practice in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” 10 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. (1991): 455–472

Hongimann, E.A.J. “How Happy was Shakespeare with the Printed Versions of his Plays?” Modern Language Review 105.4 (2010): 935–951. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 March 2012.

Lowenstein, Joseph. “The Script in the Marketplace.” Representations 12.Autumn (1985): 101–114. JSTOR. Web. 22 March 2012. <http;//www.jstor.org/stable/3043780>.

Rickard, Jane. “The Folio Collections of Shakespeare, Jonson and King James’” Shakespeare’s Book: Essays in Reading, Writing and Reception Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008).

Wilson, F.P. The Stability of Shakespeare’s Text. London: Arnold, 1965. Print.

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