The prefatory matter.
Thirty-six pieces in all were thus brought together. The volume consisted of nearly one thousand double-column pages and was sold at a pound a copy. Steevens estimated that the edition numbered 250 copies. The book was described on the title-page as published by
Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, and in the colophon as printed at the charges of ‘W. Jaggard, I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley,’ as well as of Blount. [306] On the title-page was engraved the Droeshout portrait. Commendatory verses were supplied by Ben Jonson, Hugh Holland, Leonard Digges, and I. M., perhaps Jasper Maine. The dedication was addressed to the brothers William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, the lord chamberlain, and Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery, and was signed by Shakespeare’s friends and fellow-actors, Heming and Condell. The same signatures were appended to a succeeding address ‘to the great variety of readers.’ In both addresses the two actors made pretension to a larger responsibility for the enterprise than they really incurred, but their motives in identifying themselves with the venture were doubtless irreproachable. They disclaimed (they wrote) ‘ambition either of selfe-profit or fame in undertaking the design,’ being solely moved by anxiety to ‘keepe the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare.’ ‘It had bene a thing we confesse worthie to haue bene wished,’ they inform the reader, ‘that the author himselfe had liued to haue set forth and ouerseen his owne writings. . . .’ A list of contents follows the address to the readers.