Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)

Some Account of the Life of Mr.
William Shakespear (1709)

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Title: Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
Author: Nicholas Rowe
Commentator: Samuel H. Monk
Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16275]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR ***

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Extra Series No. 1

Nicholas Rowe, _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
Shakespear_ (1709)
With an Introduction by Samuel H. Monk
The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1948 _Price. One Dollar_

GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan
ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of
Washington BENJAMIN BOYCE, University of Nebraska LOUIS I.
BREDVOLD, University of Michigan CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale
University JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University ARTHUR
FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago SAMUEL H. MONK, University
of Minnesota ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas JAMES
SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_

Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 1948

_INTRODUCTION._
The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an
important event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English
literary criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio
(1685), it is the first, "edited" edition: Rowe modernized spelling and
punctuation and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is
the first edition to include dramatis personae, the first to attempt a
systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first to
give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many illustrated
editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format and to

attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and the
pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to include an
extended life and critique of the author.
Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to
Rowe either as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editors
accepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that
he and Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of the
dramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Malone
proved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed,
spoke generously of the edition. In the Life of Rowe he said that as an
editor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the
pomp of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily
restored." The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much
profundity or penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on
Shakespeare's reputation. In our own century, more justice has been
done Rowe, at least as an editor.[1]
The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of
Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as the
poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought.
With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional
quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a
place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had
hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen
made Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne;
Rowe's editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him
comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.
When Rowe's edition appeared twenty-four years had passed since the
publication of the Fourth Folio. As Allardyce Nicoll has shown,
Tonson owned certain rights in the publication of the plays, rights
derived ultimately from the printers of the First Folio. Precisely when
he decided to publish a revised octavo edition is not known, nor do we
know when Rowe accepted the commission and began his work.
McKerrow has plausibly suggested that Tonson may have been anxious
to call attention to his rights in Shakespeare on the eve of the passage

of the copyright law which went into effect in April, 1710.[2] Certainly
Tonson must have felt that he was adding to the prestige which his
publishing house had gained by the publication of Milton and Dryden's
Virgil.
In March 1708/9 Tonson was advertising for materials "serviceable to
[the] Design" of publishing an edition of Shakespeare's works in six
volumes octavo, which would be ready "in