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    Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
    Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
    Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
    Ebook73 pages56 minutes

    Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)

    By Samuel Holt Monk and Nicholas Rowe

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
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      Book preview

      Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) - Samuel Holt Monk

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William

      Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)

      Author: Nicholas Rowe

      Commentator: Samuel H. Monk

      Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16275]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR ***

      Produced by David Starner, Louise Pryor and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Extra Series

      No. 1

      Nicholas Rowe, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)

      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

      INTRODUCTION.

      The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an important event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literary criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it is the first, edited edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuation and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the first edition to include dramatis personae, the first to attempt a systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first to give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many illustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format and to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and the pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to include an extended life and critique of the author.

      Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to Rowe either as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editors accepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that he and Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of the dramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Malone proved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed, spoke generously of the edition. In the Life of Rowe he said that as an editor Howe has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored. The preface, in his opinion, cannot be said to discover much profundity or penetration. But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare's reputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, at least as an editor.[1]

      The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as the poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought. With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen made Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne; Rowe's editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.

      When Rowe's edition appeared twenty-four years had passed since the publication of the Fourth Folio. As Allardyce Nicoll has shown, Tonson owned certain rights in the publication of the plays, rights derived ultimately from the printers of the First Folio. Precisely when he decided to publish a revised octavo edition is not known, nor do we know when Rowe accepted the commission and began his work. McKerrow has plausibly suggested that Tonson may have been anxious to call attention to his rights in Shakespeare on the eve of the passage of the copyright law which went into effect in April, 1710.[2] Certainly Tonson must have felt that he was adding to the prestige which his publishing house had gained by the publication of Milton and Dryden's Virgil.

      In March 1708/9 Tonson was advertising for materials serviceable to [the] Design of publishing an edition of Shakespeare's works in six volumes octavo, which would be ready "in a

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