In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies.

London: Printed by Tho. Cotes, for William Aspley, 1632.

Known as “The Second Folio,” this edition is in many ways a reprint (it calls itself “the second impression”) of The First Folio (1623), which was in terms of literature “the most priceless contribution, beyond all bounds and limits, to the whole world’s secular literature, and to those giant forces which promote the welfare of humanity”—Jaggard, Shakespeare Bibliography. This 1632 edition represents some careful editing of the 1623 text, and many of the textual changes were improvements, though new errors crept in through the editing and printing processes. It is also notable for the laudatory poem at the beginning of the work, which is the first appearance in print of a poet named John Milton, age twenty-four.

 

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