SH_A_KESPEARE QUARTOS AND FOLIOS.
Arirearce. is now so rich in early editions of Shakespeare that the study of Shakespearean bibliography can be pursued in some respects with more ease in America than in England. Miss Henrietta C. Bartlett, the accomplished American scholar, who has just published under the title of Mr. William Shakes- peare (H. Milford, 12s. 6d. net) an excellent catalogue of the early editions, says in her preface that the loan exhibition of 1916 at the New York Public Library was " the finest collection of books relating to Shakespeare which was ever brought together in one place." The best single collection is, of course, in the British Museum, but our other great libraries which could supplement it may not lend their treasures. Miss Bartlett catalogued the New York exhibition and has now expanded her work. She gives precise descriptions of the editions of Shakespeare's works issued before 1709, beginning with the Venus and Adonis of 1593 ; of the spurious works attributed to Shakespeare and the adaptations of his plays, up to Garrick's Florizel and Perdita of 1762 ; of the books which Shakespeare mentions or may have read, from Caxton's Recuyell of the His- tories of Troy down to the 1610 edition of the Mirrour for Magistrates ; and lastly of the books, published between 1592 and 1688, which contain noteworthy allusions to Shakespeare or his work. The last two sections are not, of course, exhaustive, and exclude, for instance, the books in which Florio indirectly refers to Shakespeare, but they contain many important items. The catalogue is admirably indexed. In the preface Miss Bartlett records the owners of books of which not more than five copies are known. Of the editions of Shakespeare's works which are as rare as this the Henry E. Huntington Library at San Gabriel, California, has 20, the British Museum 18, the Bodleian 16, Mr. Folger of New York 13, and Trinity College, Cambridge, 12. Miss Bartlett, in cataloguing the library of Mr. W. A. White, found that his 1598 quarto of Richard the Second was a unique copy of a hitherto unknown third edition, and not the ordinary second edition of the same year. The discovery is not without historical significance if we remember that Essex and his fellow-conspirators paid the actors to perform the tragedy for political reasons. Queen Elizabeth saw their purpose ; " I am Richard the Second," she told the Constable of the Tower. It was not merely literary merit that caused Valentine Simmes to print three separate quarto editions of the play in 1597-1598. Mr. Folger has the only known copy of the first quarto (1594) of Titus Andronicus ; it turned up in Sweden in 1905, as if to show that there were still undiscovered editions of Shakespeare. Mr. Folger also has a fragment, all that sur- vives, of a quarto of Henry IV., Part 1, which may have been earlier than the quarto of 1598. Miss Bartlett's compact and scholarly book will be of the greatest value to students.
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