Printing Problems in Shakespeare’s Texts
Para1Although William Shakespeare was a successful playwright in Elizabethan and Jacobean
England, about half of his plays were not printed during his life, leading scholars
to the conclusion that the printed versions of his plays were likely produced without
his direct supervision. One theory on how some of his plays made it into print is
called the Memorial Reconstruction Theory. It suggests actors who performed the original
play recalled their lines or audience members transcribed performances. Scholars point
to the inconsistencies between the First Folio of 1623, which was a supervised publication
overseen by key members of the theater company of which Shakespeare was a founding
member, and other quartos printed prior to the Folio. Often, these quartos serve as
proof of the inaccuracy in early printed Shakespeare texts.
Memorial Reconstruction
Para2Scholars believe Shakespeare did not have direct involvement with the printing of
any his dramatic works; it is possible he oversaw the publication of some of his narrative
poems, such as
Venus and Adonisin the 1590s. They theorize that actors or audience members may have transcribed plays from memory. This form of creating the script of a play for publication compromises the reliability of the text. Did the actors accurately remember what they performed as Shakespeare acted alongside them or supervised from backstage, or did they invent entire lines or passages to fill the gaps in their memory? Could a member of the audience have taken notes accurately enough during the rapid dialogue of a play to reflect the author’s words?
Para3The biggest argument for this theory has been the key differences between the texts
of about half the plays in The First Folio, compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell
roughly seven years after the death of Shakespeare and the early quartos of some of
Shakespeare’s works. These versions of the plays differ in length, language, grammar,
and more.
Para4An example of this can be found when looking at The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York which were both printed pre-1595 as plays exploring the history of King Henry VI,
while the play in the First Folio entitled Henry VI was printed in 1623. Both The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York were not attributed to Shakespeare when initially printed and were shorter in text
than Henry VI in The First Folio. Disputes exist on both sides of the argument as to which is the
more accurate version of the story, or if one is just a revision of the other. However,
regardless of how scholars see the problems in these texts, readers now can never
be certain what Shakespeare intended.
Bad Quartos
Para5Early publications of Shakespeare’s plays were printed as quartos: small, single-play
texts about the size of a modern paperback book. A number of Shakespeare’s early printed
plays have been labeled bad quartos. A bad quarto can be something as simple as bad printing (misalignments on the page,
obvious misspellings, etc.). It is possible they were the result of audience members
or actors from rival companies at his plays, transcribing dialog and actions from
the play as it was performed and publishing the transcription as their own or selling
it to other theatres. These bad quartos offer a window in early modern printing practices and also into the evolution of
Shakespeare’s plays
The Example of Hamlet
Para6Hamlet presents a significant puzzle for the modern editor trying to determine what Shakespeare
wrote. Hamlet exists in three significantly different versions:
the
badquarto of 1603
the authorized quarto which followed (1604); most modern versions of the play rely
extensively on this edition
the Folio text of 1623
Para7In both the first and second quartos, the first line in Hamlet’s first soliloquy reads,
O, that this too, too sallied flesh would melt.The Folio substitutes sallied for the seemingly more logical word, solid. But sallied occurs elsewhere as a variant spelling of the word sullied (dirty, sinful, or corrupted). Could it be that the earlier versions are right, and that Hamlet imagines himself, like trodden snow, dirtied and capable of purification only if his flesh goes through the cycle of thawing, evaporating, and condensing into dew? Of course, Shakespeare may also have revised the play between its first printing as a quarto and his death, leading his colleagues to publish the updated text in the First Folio. So which is most accurate?
Determining Accuracy
Para8Scholars question the printings from the so-called bad quartos because they were created
from the potentially inaccurate ear of an actor or audience member. They have argued
extensively over differences in text from the quartos and the First Folio for not
just Hamlet, but also King Lear. Many have concluded that although the First Folio can not guarantee every bit of
dialog written is Shakespeare’s, it is one of the most accurate records we have of
his writing because it was supervised by his colleagues who performed alongside him
for many years.
Key Print Sources
Bourus, Terri.
The Good Enough Quarto: Hamlet as a Material Object.Critical Survey vol. 31, no. 12, Mar. 2019, p. 72.
Hosley, Richard.
The Corrupting Influence of the Bad Quarto on the Received Text of Romeo and Juliet.Shakespeare Quarterly vol. 4, no. 1, 1953, pp. 11–33.
Kim, Heejin.
The Memorial Reconstruction Theory and Chronicles: The Henry VI Plays.Shakespeare vol. 15, no. 4, 2019, pp. 356–378.
Lesser, Zachary. Hamlet After Q1: An Uncanny History of the Shakespearean Text. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Menzer, Paul. The Hamlets: Cues, Qs, and Remembered Texts. University of Delaware Press, 2008.
Key Online Sources
Best, Michael.
Printing, and Problems in Shakespeare’s Text.Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/publishing/problems.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
Mowat, Barbara, and Paul Werstine.
An Introduction to This Text: Hamlet.Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/an-introduction-to-this-text/. Accessed 7 Jul. 2025.
Prosopography
Kate McPherson
Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley
University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity
in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities
Institute,
Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom,at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.
Leah Hamby
Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed
several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from
Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her
other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.
Matthew Davies
Matthew Davies was a student at Utah Valley University.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the
Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the
ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery,
a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | Printing Problems in Shakespeare’s Texts |
| Type of text | Critical |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | Early Modern England Encyclopedia |
| Source |
By Matthew Davies, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
|
| Editorial declaration | This document uses Canadian English spelling |
| Edition | Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a |
| Sponsor(s) |
Early Modern England EncyclopediaAnthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
|
| Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
| Document status | published, peer-reviewed |
| Funder(s) |
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship |
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