The Works of William Shakespear, Vol. 2 of 3 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Charles Knight

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1330021789 ISBN 13: 9781330021781

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2020

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Works of William Shakespear, Vol. 2 of 3

Of the second nnd third parts of Henry VI., copies in quarto, under different titles, lengthened in some speeches, and abbreviated in others, are extant; but the first part of Henrv VI. appeared originally in the collected edition of Mr. William ShaKespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, put forth under the care of his fellow-actors, Heminget and Condell. This single fact is sufficient, in our mind, to establish Shakespeares claim to the authorship of it, even were we to take Malones assertion for granted (which we are by . jmeans inclined to do) that the internal evidence is i opposed to that claim. When Heminge and CcjJeii published the folio of 1623, many of Shakespeares contemporaries, authors, actors, and auditors, were alive; and the player-editors, if they would have been guilty of the dishonesty, would hardly have committed the folly of inserting a play in their volume which was not his production, and perhaps well known to have been the work of some rival dramatist. If we imagine the frequenters of theatres to have been comparatively ignorant upon Buch a point, living authors and living actors must have been aware of the truth, and in the face of these Heminge and Condell would not have ventured to appropriate to Shakespeare what had really come from the pen of another. That tricks of the kind were sometimes played by fraudulent booksellers, in publishing single plays, is certainly true; but Heminge and Coudell were actors of repute, and men of character: they were presenting to the world, in ar. important volume, scattered performances, in order to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our Shakespeare, and we cannot believe that they vrould have included any drama to which he had no title. In all probability they had acted with Shakespeare in the first part of Henry VI.: they had received his instructions and directions from time to time with reference to the p...

Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1330021789
• ISBN 13: 9781330021781
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 511