A1 is the Author’s original MS.
B1 is a transcript by another hand with some accidental omissions and, of course, slips of the pen. From this transcript was printed the Quarto of 1597, Q1.
A2 is the Author’s original MS. revised by himself, with corrections and additions, interlinear, marginal, and on inserted leaves.
B2 is a copy of this revised MS., made by another hand, probably after the death of the Author and perhaps a very short time before 1623. As the stage directions of the Folio, which was printed from B2, are more precise and ample as a rule than those of the Quarto, we may infer that the transcript, B2, was made for the library of the theatre, perhaps to take the place of the original which had become worn by use, for Richard III. continued to be a popular acting play. Some curious, though not frequent, coincidences between the text of the Folio and that of the Quarto of 1602, Q3, lead us to suppose that the writer of B2 had occasionally recourse to that Quarto to supplement passages which, by its being frayed or stained, had become illegible in A2.
Assuming the truth of this hypothesis, the object of an Editor must be to give in the text as near an approximation as possible to A, rejecting from F1 all that is due to the unknown writer of B2 and supplying its place from Q1, which, errors of pen and press apart, certainly came from the hand of Shakespeare. In the construction of our text we have steadily borne this principle in mind, only deviating from it in a few instances where we have retained the expanded version of the Folio in preference to the briefer version of the Quarto, even when we incline to think that the earlier form is more terse and therefore not likely to have been altered by its Author. Our reason is this: as the Folio version contains substantially that of the Quarto and as the question does not admit of a positive decision we prefer the risk of putting in something which Shakespeare did not to that of leaving out something which he did write. Cæteris paribus, we have adopted the reading of the Quarto.
In conclusion we commend a study of the text of Richard III. to those, if such there be, who imagine that it is possible by the exercise of critical skill to restore with certainty what Shakespeare actually wrote.
We have great pleasure in repeating our thanks to the curators of the British Museum and of the Bodleian Library and in adding to the number of those who have laid us under obligation the names of the Rev. Joseph Power, Fellow of Clare College, Mr Huth, and Mr Lilly.
It is only right to add that it is the constant kindness of the Duke of Devonshire which enables us to publish this volume without further delay and with such an approach to completeness as it may be found to possess.
W. G. C.
W. A. W.