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 importantevent in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literarycriticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it isthe first, "edited" edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuationand quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the firstedition to include dramatis personae, the first to attempt asystematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the firstto give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of manyillustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio formatand to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding andthe pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first toinclude an extended life and critique of the author.
Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to Roweeither as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editorsaccepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that heand Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of thedramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Maloneproved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed, spokegenerously of the edition. In the Life of Rowe he said that as aneditor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the pompof notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored."The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much profundityor penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare'sreputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, atleast as an editor.[1]
The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth ofShakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as thepoems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought.With the passing