Richard the Third: The First Quarto, 1597; A Facsimile in Photo-Lithography (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Richard the Third: The First Quarto, 1597; A Facsimile in Photo-Lithography

The copy - as I hope to prove - supplied to the printers of the F. Was a copy of Q6, 1622, enlarged, altered, and corrected in accordance With a complete ms. Of the play in the possession of the theatre.

That this ms. Was in existence when the publication of the F. Was determined on is certain, - without it the F version would have been an impossibility, - and though it may seem strange that With this complete copy in their possession, Messrs. Heminge and Condell should have taken the trouble to provide a special copy of it for the printers of the F it is clear they must have done so, and in the way I have supposed it is impossible otherwise to account for the numerous errors which the F. Has derived from the Qos and an examination of these errors shows that Q6 was the particular Q from which they were immediately taken. Indeed, this Q was almost of necessity the one to be made use of, the previous editions being exhausted, dispersed, or destroyed, as was the common fate of Sixpenny books of the play. And it may be noted that this was the course followed with respect to the other plays in the F.

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