Second Quarto

Second Quarto
Georgelazenby · CC BY 3.0 · source
Name	Second Quarto
Caption	Title page of a representative early modern quarto
Author	Anonymous printing syndicate; attributed texts
Country	England
Language	Early Modern English
Genre	Playbook; drama; early modern literature
Publisher	Various London printers and stationers
Publication date	17th century (multiple issues)
Media type	Quarto (imprimatur)

Second Quarto

The Second Quarto is an early modern printed play edition produced in the quarto format and associated with multiple dramatic works and issues in Renaissance London. It occupies a complex place in bibliographical studies of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Henslowe, Edward Alleyn, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Henry Condell, and the King's Men acting company. Its surviving copies are central to textual scholarship involving First Folio, quartos, stationers' registers, Robert Greene, and printers such as Andrew Miller and Edward Allde.

Background and Publication History

Second-quarto issues emerged in the printing ecosystem after initial popular impressions, recorded in the Stationers' Register and bookseller lists kept by figures like Edward Blount, William Jaggard, and Thomas Pavier. They were often produced to satisfy demand following a first quarto impression, with typographical corrections, variant settings, and sometimes substantive revisions influenced by theatrical performance practice at venues such as the Globe Theatre, the Blackfriars Theatre, and the Rose Theatre. Printers and publishers involved included families and firms such as the Blount family, Nicholas Ling, and the John Smethwick circle, and distribution networks tied to Paul's Cross bookstalls and Stationers' Hall entries. Patronage or proprietary claims sometimes invoked noble household libraries like those of Earl of Pembroke or civic figures such as Sir Thomas Lucy.

Textual Variants and Editorial Issues

Second-quarto texts exhibit a range of textual phenomena that have engaged editors from Samuel Johnson to Edmund Malone and modern scholars like E.K. Chambers, G. Blakemore Evans, Gary Taylor, and Stanley Wells. Variants include orthographic inconsistency found in hands connected to compositors and printers' workshops, as well as substantive divergences reflecting possible authorial revision, memorial reconstruction by actors such as William Kemp or Richard Burbage, and theatrical interpolation associated with company records like the Henslowe Papers. Collation of second quartos against First Folio and quartos by textual critics including F.W. Bateson and R.B. McKerrow reveals emendations, misreadings, and stage directions absent from other witnesses. Editorial practice has addressed issues such as speech-prefixing, act and scene numbering, and stage-business notated in stagecraft treatises by figures like John Webster and Thomas Kyd. Bibliographers also consider the impact of censorship episodes tied to authorities like the Stationers' Company and ecclesiastical commissioners on variant readings.

Physical Description and Printing Features

Second-quarto exemplars are typographically distinctive: quarto gatherings, foliation or pagination patterns, and distinctive typefaces linked to specific printshops such as those of Thomas Creede and Valentine Simmes. Features include textual irregularities from worn punches, compositor corrections called "signatures", and occasional use of different blackletter and roman types for title pages versus text. Surviving copies show contemporary annotations, ownership marks from collectors like Humphrey Dyson and George Vertue, and binding evidence referencing bookbinders in Cheapside and St. Paul's Churchyard. Paper analysis often identifies watermarks traceable to Flemish papermakers working with merchants associated with Dutch Republic trade. Physical defects—such as cancelled leaves, mis-signed gatherings, and reset title pages—inform bibliographical descriptions by cataloguers at institutions like the British Library and Folger Shakespeare Library.

Relationship to Other Quartos and Folios

Second-quarto editions must be read in relation to preceding quartos (first quartos) and subsequent quartos as well as the composite First Folio collections compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell. Where a second quarto departs from a first quarto, scholars consider explanations including theatrical revision, compositor error, or piracy by rival publishers like William Leake or Peter Short. Comparisons with the First Folio reveal editorial interventions attributed to the King's Men or folio compositors; similarities with quartos of plays by contemporaries such as Ben Jonson and John Marston illuminate printing conventions and authorial networks. Textual genealogies constructed by editors like Alfred W. Pollard and R. C. Bald map relationships among witnesses and help establish stemmata that account for contamination across editions.

Critical Reception and Influence

Second-quarto witnesses have shaped critical readings and performance reconstructions of Renaissance plays by informing editors and directors including Graham Holderness, Tanya Pollard, Peter Brook, and practitioners at institutions like the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe. Scholarly editions that relied on second quartos influenced communities from Victorian editorial circles—represented by William Hazlitt and Charles Knight—to 20th-century textual critics engaged in variorum projects. The existence of variant second quartos has prompted debates over authorial intention, textual authority, and performance practice involving theorists such as Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt. Material-study approaches linking second quartos to archival sources—Henslowe Papers, Stationers' Register, and parish records—continue to affect bibliographic methodologies in institutions like Folger Shakespeare Library, Bodleian Library, and Cambridge University Library.

Category:Early modern printed works