Page:A Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto (1916).djvu/14

Rh same. Three other cases need special mention, the first of these being the Second Part of Henry IV, of which Sheet E in the first edition exists in two states, four copies of the first and four of the second issue being in public ownership, and three of the first and six of the second in private. In the case of Hamlet we have a double complication, an earlier text and a later, and for the later text two states of the title-page. Of the earlier edition only two copies are known (one public, one private); of the later text three copies with the title-page dated 1604 (one public, two private), and two (both public) with the last figure of the date altered to a 5. Lastly of Troilus and Cressida there are two issues of 1609, one with a mention on the title of its having been acted (two copies in public ownership, one in private), the other (five public, two private) withdrawing this statement and adding the preface, from which we have already quoted, which takes credit for the play “not being sullied with the smoaky breath of the multitude.” Adding the editions which need no comment to those already mentioned we can present the whole series of First Editions in a list, variant issues being counted together, but editions with different texts kept apart.*

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 * The fragment of Henry IV, Part I, from the Perry Collection is reckoned with the 1598 edition, as if the same text. Logically, either the fragment or the 3 copies of the 1598 edition should be excluded.