[[1]] A quarto volume, or quarto, is a book which is the size of a fourth of a sheet of printing paper. The sheets are folded twice to make four leaves or eight pages, and the usual size is about 6x9 in. A folio is a volume of the size of a half sheet of printing paper. The paper is folded once and bound in the middle, the usual size being about 9 x 12 in. The divisions of the book made by thus folding sheets of paper are called quires, and may consist of four or eight leaves.
[[2]] This view of the Pavier-Jaggard collection is held by A. W. Pollard of the British Museum and W. W. Greg of Trinity College Library, Cambridge. The writers of this volume incline to accord it complete recognition.
[[3]] It was evidently designed to fit in between Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar; but the owner of the publishing rights holding out till that part of the book was ready, the editors "ran in" Timon of Athens to fill up. When Troilus and Cressida was finally arranged for, it had to be inserted between the Histories and Tragedies.
CHAPTER X
THE PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD—IMITATION AND EXPERIMENT
1587 (?)-1594
The first period of Shakespeare's work carries him from the youthful efforts at dramatic construction to such mastery of dramatic technique and of original portrayal of life as raise him, when aided by his supreme poetic art, above all other living dramatists. It was chiefly a period in which the young poet, full of ambition, curious of his own talents, and eager for success, was feeling his way among the different types of drama which he saw reaching success on the London stage.
The longest period of experiment was in the writing of chronicle histories. The experience acquired in these six plays, all derived in some measure from earlier work by others, made Shakespeare a master of this type. Next in importance was comedy, chiefly romantic with four plays of widely different aim and merit. These two types are brought to the highest development in the dramatist's second period. Tragedy was to wait for a fuller and riper experience. What the complete earlier version of Romeo and Juliet was like, we have only a faint idea; it was obviously, while intensely appealing, the work of a young and immature poet. Titus Andronicus led nowhere in development.