1438050 1623 Shakespeare. Henry IV Pt. 1. Complete.
Shakespeare's "The First Part of Henry the Fourth".
Extracted from the First Folio. 1623. Complete.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION This fragment consists of 13 printed pages of antique Renaissance rag paper. Eleven of the printed pages are double-sided and two pages, the first and last, are single-sided. Five additional pages of modern paper were inserted by the binder, three in front and two in back, including one single-sided title page. It is very finely bound in bright red textured patent leather with gold print and trim and labeled only on the spine, "First Folio, 1623." The bound cover measures 8-1/8" x 12-1/8" x 3/8". Inside pages measure 8" x 12". Inside the front cover on the bottom edge of the visible binding is tiny gold print that reads " Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe London England". Sangorski & Sutcliffe was established in 1901 and soon became one of Englandís foremost luxury bookbinders. The firm achieved world-wide fame for the exquisite bindings it produced throughout the 1900s, earning recognition as the most important bookbindery of the 20th century. The first three bound pages, inserted by the binder, are heavy, off white stationary paper of very high quality. Pages 1 and 2 are blank on both sides. The third page is a printed, single-sided title page: "Henry IV. / Part 1 / by / Wm. Shakespeare / The First Folio / 1623" The fourth bound page leaf is the first page of the original fragment. It is blank on side one, and side two is printed with the first page of print from Part 1 of Henry IV. The first printed page is on heavier paper than the inside pages. The page numbering begins with the first page of print and is numbered 46. It is followed by page 49. No portion of the play is missing or omitted between these pages. This is a pagination error that
meeting with Dr. Eric Rasmussen to authenticate this fragment, he explained that the printing process of the First Folio took two years to complete and paper represented the biggest overhead expense because of how costly it was to manufacture. The cost was so high that it was prohibitive to print production, limiting publishers to 1000 print copies or less per job. To cut down on expenditures, publishers did not allow any paper to go to waste. Errors that already printed were bound "as is"; every page was filled with text, regardless of section breaks or chapters. Pages were printed on both sides and rarely left blank. These practices were applied to the First Folio as well and is the reason many plays share a page with the play printed before or after in the folio. The first page of one play was printed on the back side of the last page of the preceding play when necessary. Therefore, if an original complete First Folio was split up or fragmented into individual plays, those that shared a page might lose one page for the other to be complete. For this reason, many fragments are missing the first or last page. In other First Folio copies we viewed in digital format, Part 1 of Henry IV shares both the first and the last pages; the first page is printed on the back side of the last page of Richard II, and the last page is printed on the front side of the first page of Part II of Henry IV. In this fragment, not only are both the first and last page present, but they appear to be printed on a single side of much heavier paper or cardstock. The first page of print, however, has a barely detectable line along the bound edge of the text that resembles a very faint glue line. The heavier paper appears to be authentic rag paper from the same time period, though, ruling out the possibility that pages 46 and 73 were substituted with 19th century facsimiles. The only reference to heavy paper our research uncovered indicated that the main title pages only of certain copies of the complete Second Folio were printed on heavier paper. (Ref: The Variant Issues of Shakespeare's Second Folio..... by Robert Metcalf Smith, Ph.D.) Fortunately, we had access to the leading world expert on First Folios and inquired about this anomaly. According to Dr. Rasmussen, single plays from the first folio were sometimes prepared for individual sale by adhering the first and last page to heavier paper, which served as covers. He said this was done by the print house to maximize profits, possibly during the two-year printing process, as individual plays were completed, and printing costs were piling up. One could speculate that perhaps the reason only 750 complete First Folios were published, rather than 1000, is because a couple hundred copies of individual plays were pre-sold as fragments with card stock covers, as a way to generate revenue and cover expenses during the lengthy production process. In his explanation of the process of binding individual play copies with heavy card stock, Dr. Rasmussen confirmed for us that the faint line we saw on the inside edge of the first page, was indeed visible evidence that the original first page of the play, which was printed double-sided on the much thinner, light weight paper used for every other First Folio page, was glued to a page of heavy card stock paper. Rasmussen stated that if the page were removed from
King Henry IV Pt.1. Extracted from the First Folio. 1623. Complete.
the heavy paper, the second side would be printed with the last page of ìThe Life & death of Richard the Second,î as expected of a true First Folio page copy. TEXT The complete First Folio of the work of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) that was published in 1623 included 36 plays. Half of the published plays were printed by pirates and sold during Shakespeare's lifetime, but about 18-20 plays were never published in print before the folio was compiled, seven years after Shakespeare's death. Dr. Rasmussen estimates that about 750 complete copies of the First Folio were originally produced but to date fewer than 240 copies (considered "complete" or near complete) are known to exist. Most of those are now in the Special Collections of prestigious Universities or in special exhibits of world-class museums, but a few complete First Folios exist in the private libraries of a select group of very fortunate collectors.