Special Collections

Book of the Month, March 2009

The Works of Mr. William Shakespear
William Shakespeare; ed. by Nicholas Rowe
London: J. Tonson, 1709
[S.L.] I [Shakespeare - 1709]

The playwright Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) was crowned Poet Laureate in 1715, has been described as the foremost English tragic dramatist of the eighteenth century, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Yet he is best known not for his original work, but for his six-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays, which celebrates its 300th anniversary this year. Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare is the first non-folio to be published, and Rowe is the first modern editor of Shakespeare. His text is based primarily on the Fourth Folio (1685), although it restores some passages from earlier texts, introduces some silent emendations, and modernises spelling and punctuation. Various features which now seem utterly standard stem from Rowe: the division of the plays into acts and scenes; lists of the dramatis personae for each play; the addition of stage directions. Rowe included a life of Shakespeare which was the first biography of Shakespeare of any length and which remained the basis of accounts until the early nineteenth century.

The picture is the frontispiece from volume three – the first volume of histories – and shows King John.

 

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