Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Ghosts, Holes, Rips and Scrapes : Shakespeare in 1619, Bibliography in the Longue Durée / Zachary Lesser.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Published in cooperation with Folger Shakespeare LibraryPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Description: 1 online resource (232 p.) : 70 color imgs and 1 tableContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812297928
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 822.3/3 23
LOC classification:
  • PR3071 .L47 2021eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Ghosts -- Chapter 2. Holes -- Chapter 3. Rips and Scrapes -- Conclusion. Questions -- Appendix A. Census of Known Sets of the 1619 Quartos -- Appendix B. Order of Plays in Known Bindings of the 1619 Quartos -- Appendix C. Copies Consulted -- Notes -- Index
Summary: Four years before the publication of the First Folio, a group of London printers and booksellers attempted to produce a "collected works" of William Shakespeare, not in an imposingly large format but as a series of more humble quarto pamphlets. For mysterious reasons, perhaps involving Shakespeare's playing company, the King's Men, the project ran into trouble. In an attempt to salvage it, information on the title pages of some of the playbooks was falsified, making them resemble leftover copies of earlier editions. The deception worked for nearly three hundred years, until it was unmasked by scholars in the early twentieth century. The discovery of these "Pavier Quartos," as they became known, was a landmark success for the New Bibliography and played an important role in establishing the validity and authority of that method of analysis. While more recent scholars have reassessed the traditional narrative that the New Bibliographers wrote, no one has gone back to look at the primary evidence: the quartos themselves.In Ghosts, Holes, Rips and Scrapes Zachary Lesser undertakes a completely fresh study of these playbooks. Through an intensive bibliographical analysis of over three hundred surviving quartos, Lesser reveals evidence that has gone entirely unseen before: "ghosts" (faint, oily impressions produced when one book is bound next to another); "holes" (the tiny remains of the first simple stitching that held pamphlets together); and "rips and scrapes" (post-production alterations of title pages). This new evidence—much of it visible only with the aid of enhanced photographic methods—suggests that the "Pavier Quartos" are far more mysterious, with far more consequential ramifications for book history and Shakespeare scholarship than we have thought.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Ghosts -- Chapter 2. Holes -- Chapter 3. Rips and Scrapes -- Conclusion. Questions -- Appendix A. Census of Known Sets of the 1619 Quartos -- Appendix B. Order of Plays in Known Bindings of the 1619 Quartos -- Appendix C. Copies Consulted -- Notes -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Four years before the publication of the First Folio, a group of London printers and booksellers attempted to produce a "collected works" of William Shakespeare, not in an imposingly large format but as a series of more humble quarto pamphlets. For mysterious reasons, perhaps involving Shakespeare's playing company, the King's Men, the project ran into trouble. In an attempt to salvage it, information on the title pages of some of the playbooks was falsified, making them resemble leftover copies of earlier editions. The deception worked for nearly three hundred years, until it was unmasked by scholars in the early twentieth century. The discovery of these "Pavier Quartos," as they became known, was a landmark success for the New Bibliography and played an important role in establishing the validity and authority of that method of analysis. While more recent scholars have reassessed the traditional narrative that the New Bibliographers wrote, no one has gone back to look at the primary evidence: the quartos themselves.In Ghosts, Holes, Rips and Scrapes Zachary Lesser undertakes a completely fresh study of these playbooks. Through an intensive bibliographical analysis of over three hundred surviving quartos, Lesser reveals evidence that has gone entirely unseen before: "ghosts" (faint, oily impressions produced when one book is bound next to another); "holes" (the tiny remains of the first simple stitching that held pamphlets together); and "rips and scrapes" (post-production alterations of title pages). This new evidence—much of it visible only with the aid of enhanced photographic methods—suggests that the "Pavier Quartos" are far more mysterious, with far more consequential ramifications for book history and Shakespeare scholarship than we have thought.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)