Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)

Extra Series
No. 1
With an Introduction by
Samuel H. Monk
The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1948 Price. One Dollar
GENERAL EDITORS Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan Edward Niles Hooker, University of California, Los Angeles H.t. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles ASSISTANT EDITOR W. Earl Britton, University of Michigan ADVISORY EDITORS Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington Benjamin Boyce, University of Nebraska Louis I. Bredvold, University of Michigan Cleanth Brooks, Yale University James L. Clifford, Columbia University Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Ernest Mossner, University of Texas James Sutherland, Queen Mary College, London
Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 1948
The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an important event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literary criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it is the first, edited edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuation and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the first edition to include dramatis personae , the first to attempt a systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first to give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many illustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format and to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and the pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to include an extended life and critique of the author.
The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as the poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought. With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen made Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne; Rowe's editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.