![]() ![]() Then follow the names of “The Principal actors in all these plays. “The engraving of Shakespeare’s portrait by Martin Droeshout is on the title page of the Folio. & Tragedies, Published according to the True Original Copies. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories Rana terms it, in the preamble to the actual plays bears the print “Mr. On the other hand if the conception of an ‘omnibus’ volume emanated from the two editors, they must have discussed the scheme with Shakespeare. The notion of a collection of all his plays might have appeared to him and he might have brought up the subject in casual conversation with his good friends and companions. The original idea regarding the First Folio might very well have come from Shakespeare himself in the year of his death. It is estimated that the Printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio ran to roughly 250 copies, selling at a pound each. The editors realising that there were too many (36) plays to present in a quarto edition, turned to the only solution - the heavy expense of printing them in Folio. Actually there were quarto versions of individual plays, sometimes several quartos of the same play. The printing of First Folio too had a strong reason for Heminge and Condell. ![]() In a folio, a larger size of paper is used, ranging from eleven to sixteen inches in width. Sometimes the meaning is obscure, speeches are mixed up, word order is confused, unwarranted alterations to the text occur. on paper where a sheet is doubly folded to produce four leaves or eight pages and some of these quartos, notably Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor Henry V and Hamlet, are of inferior quality. They had been published in quarto editions i.e. Nineteen plays had already appeared before the publication of the 1623 First Folio. Shakespeare had penned thirty six plays (thirty seven if we include Pericles which is believed to be not entirely his). The following lines have been resounding in men’s ears for three centuries which were addressed by a reader who recognised that the editors had gained for England a more precious prize than the conquistadores had won for spain Īssociates they did but dig for the gold, John Milton, too, must, as a youngman at Cambridge have been an eager reader of the First Folio. It is a dream of all the students of English Literature to stumble across the First Folio. It is estimated that its cost is worth more than 10,00,000 Pounds. Rana not made his prize discovery in the Central Library of Roorkee University. The First Folio in India would not have reached the ever sensitive ears of the mediapersons, critics, commentators and students of Shakespeare had the Chief Librarian M.S. They prepared and oversaw the First Folio edition of Shakespeare (1623) and without their work which was undertaken in part as a gesture of love and respect towards their colleague, some plays would almost certainly have been lost and others would only exist in garbled versions. But, equally the world owes John Heminge and Henry Condell an incalculable debt for preserving to us a heritage of priceless value. In the above well-known passage from his lecture on ‘The Hero as Poet’ Carlyle asserts that Shakespeare is a more precious imperial heritage than even India. Official persons would answer doubtless in official language: but we, for our part too, should not be forced, to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire we cannot do without Shakespeare!’ ![]() ‘CONSIDER NOW, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English: never have had any Shakespeare? Really it were a grave question. ![]()
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