The First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet

Contents:

Introduction:

1. Textual provenance: A century of 'bad quartos'; Past thinking about Q1 Romeo and Juliet; The early draft / revision theory; Memorial reporters?; Stage abridgement, not memorial reconstruction?; Evidence of memorial agency; Alternatives to the traditional narrative; A version for the provinces?; Theatrical abridgement; Textual provenance: conclusion

2. Dramatic specificities: Pace and action; Stage directions; The betrothal scene; Characterization; Inconsistent time references

3. Publication and printing: The First Quarto in 1597; The First Quarto after 1597

Note on the text

List of characters

THE PLAY

Textual notes

Appendix A. Scene division

Appendix B. Casting and doubling

Appendix C. Bel-védere (1600)

Appendix D. Q1 in eighteenth-century editions of Romeo and Juliet

Bibliography

 

Summary:

Two different versions of Romeo and Juliet were published during Shakespeare’s lifetime: the second quarto of 1599, on which modern editions are usually based, and the first quarto of 1597. The latter version was long denigrated as a ‘bad’ quarto’, but recent scholarship sees in it a crucial witness for the theatrical practices of Shakespeare and his company. The shorter of the two versions by about one quarter, the first quarto has high-paced action, fuller stage directions than the second quarto, and fascinating alternatives to the famous speeches in the longer version. The introduction to this edition provides a full discussion of the origins of the first quarto, before analysing its distinguishing features and presenting a concise history of the 1597 version. The text is provided with a full collation and commentary which alert the reader to crucial differences between the first and the second quartos.

Reviews:

This is an excellent edition of a wonderful play. Lukas Erne's annotations celebrate Q1 for what it is, rather than simply as an interesting adjunct to the received text. The challenging introduction, careful collations, insightful notes, and useful appendices open up the play to the wider audience it deserves. (Comparative Drama)

Erne, whose book of 2003 (in the words of its title) repositioned Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist, has here valuably emphasized again the contrasting evidence for this and other plays' equal connection to the dramatic and theatrical. (The Library)

The introduction does a masterful job of presenting all the theories and, without too obviously taking a side, puts the reader in possession of the relevant facts. (Notes and Queries)

Erne offers a clear textual introduction, detailed commentary and helpful appendices… Erne's edition is a worthy contribution to a fine series.
(The Times Literary Supplement)

Readers who finished Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist with the question 'now what?', puzzling what to do with a book whose fascinating implications would seem to return us to an older, author-centered mode of literary criticism, will be singularly impressed at how much Erne's Q1 Romeo and Juliet achieves toward seeing an old play with new eyes. (Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen)

Lukas Erne’s edition of the first quarto (Q1) of Romeo and Juliet is the latest [edition in the New Cambridge Shakespeare Early Quartos] series to be released, and it is excellent. It begins with a forty-four-page introduction that carefully and astutely covers the scholarship on the provenance of Q1 Romeo and of its strengths and weaknesses, and comes to a reasoned conclusion. … All in all, Erne’s edition thoroughly demonstrates his main point: “If we are interested in getting close to a Shakespeare play as it was performed as well as in the process which turned Shakespeare’s original drama into a workable performance script, then there is no better text to turn to than the first quarto of Romeo and Juliet” (25). (Shakespeare Quarterly)