The symbol Qq signifies the agreement of Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5 and Q6.
Besides these, several editions, usually known as Players' Quartos, were printed at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the following century. Of these we have had before us during our collation, editions of 1676, 1685, 1695 and 1703. These we call respectively Q(1676), Q(1685), Q(1695) and Q(1703). We have given all readings which seemed in any way remarkable, though we need scarcely say that the changes made in these editions have no authority whatever. It is however worthy of notice that many emendations usually attributed to Rowe and Pope are really derived from one or other of these Players' Quartos. When we give a reading as belonging to one of these Quartos, it is to be understood that it occurs there for the first time and that all the subsequent Quartos adopt it.
The text of Hamlet given in the Folio of 1623 is not derived from any of the previously existing Quartos, but from an independent manuscript. Many passages are found in the Folio which do not appear in any of the Quartos. On the other hand many passages found in the Quartos are not found in the Folio. It is to be remarked that several of those which appear in the Folio and not in the Quarto of 1604 or its successors, are found in an imperfect form in the Quarto of 1603, and therefore are not subsequent additions. Both the Quarto text of 1604 and the Folio text of 1623 seem to have been derived from manuscripts of the play curtailed, and curtailed differently, for purposes of representation. Therefore in giving in our text all the passages from both Folio and Quarto we are reproducing, as near as may be, the work as it was originally written by Shakespeare, or rather as finally retouched by him after the spurious edition of 1603.
We have been unable to procure a copy of the Quarto edition of this play, edited in 1703 by 'the accurate Mr John Hughs' (Theobald's Shakespeare Restored, p. 26), and have therefore quoted the readings of it on Theobald's authority. It is different from the Players' Quarto of 1703, and is not mentioned in Bohn's edition of Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual. No copy of it exists in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the library of the Duke of Devonshire, the Capell collection, or any other to which we have had access.
We have to thank Dr C. M. Ingleby for the loan of several editions of Hamlet which we should otherwise have had difficulty in procuring.
2. King Lear first appeared in 1608. In this year there were two editions in Quarto. One bears the following title:
M. William Shakespeare, | HIS | True Chronicle History of the life | and death of King Lear, and his | three Daughters. | With the unfortunate life of EDGAR, | sonne and heire to the Earle of Glocester, and | his sullen and assumed humour of TOM | of Bedlam. | As it was plaid before the Kings Maiesty at White-Hall, vp- | on S. Stephens night, in Christmas Hollidaies. | By his Maiesties Seruants, playing vsually at the | Globe on the Banck-side. | Printed for Nathaniel Butter. | 1608. |
The printer's device is that of J. Roberts.
This we have called Q1. In the few instances in which there are differences between Capell's copy and that in the Duke of Devonshire's library, we have distinguished the readings as those of Q1 (Cap.) and Q1 (Dev.) respectively. Through the kindness of Sir S. Morton Peto and Mr Lilly, we have been enabled to collate two other copies, but without discovering any variations from that in the Capell collection.
In the same year another Quarto edition of this play was issued by the same publisher. Its title is as follows: