Richard II, fourth edition

Working with printer William White, Matthew Law published the fourth edition of Richard II in 1608. After publishing three editions of Richard II and eleven editions total of Shakespeare’s plays from 1597 to 1602, Andrew Wise transferred his rights to Richard II and his other Shakespeare plays to Law, another London bookseller, on June 25, 1603.

For the fourth edition’s first issue, Law merely recycled the attributions found on the title page of the previous edition, specifically citing the play’s original performance by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and its authorship by Shakespeare. Later that same year, however, Law reissued the play with a different title page, which advertised additions to the play and a recent performance by the King’s Men at the Globe.

Even though it was not advertised on this title page, the fourth edition was the first edition of the play to feature a longer version of Act 4, scene i, depicting King Richard’s on-stage deposition. This version of the “deposition scene” is a bit shorter than the same scene in the 1623 First Folio.

The “deposition scene” itself has been at the center of much critical debate and speculation. Due to the controversial content of this scene, many scholars have argued that its absence from the first three quartos suggests that the play was originally performed with this scene, but that the play was subsequently censored in print. Another possibility is that the later addition of this scene reflects Shakespeare’s revisions to the play. Since the variant fourth edition’s title page advertises both textual additions and new performance information, later editions of Richard II may have been based on a version Shakespeare adjusted for its revival at the Globe early in the reign of King James I.
   
The copy shown above is one of six listed in the English Short Title Catalogue, and is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library's collection. It was bound by the 19^th century firm Riviere and Sons and was later collated by renowned bibliographer F.S. Ferguson at the antiquarian book firm Bernard Quaritch. To learn more about this play and its early printing history, see the Folger’s page on Richard II, and the British Library’s Shakespeare in Quarto, which also includes information about another copy of this edition.