1438800 1623 Shakespeare. All's Well. Complete.
9670.
All's Well That Ends Well. From the First Folio. 1623.
First Printing. Complete.
As there are no earlier quartos, this is the sole substantive authority for the text. Complete. All's Well is one of eighteen plays in the First Folio that were printed from a manuscript source and 'it shows every sign of having been printed from Shakespeare's foul papers' (Stanley Wells). London, Printed by Isaac Jaggarg and Ed. Blount. 1623. Folio, 13 leaves, V1 verso - Y1 verso, paginated 239-254, headpiece ornament and caption title; light brown stain to fore-edge throughout, some soiling, lower corners repaired with partial loss to ten words on V1-V2, fore-edge cut close and occasionally strengthened affexting line border and two letters on v5 verso and x6 verso, inner margin of first few leaves strenghened. Full recent calf, old style, by Bernard Middleton.
All's Well is one of the most textually challenging of all the Folio-only plays, that is plays with no quarto precedents. Jonathan Bate in his wonderfully thorough "The Case For the Folio" argues persuasively for retention of several of the "errors" that have suffered emendation over the centuries. It is stylistically similar to that other "problem" play Measure for Measure and was probably written around the same time. Though Isabel of that play has in modern times been held up as the a champion of feminism, the same cannot be said about Helen. Both use the "bed trick" to achieve their pbjective, but Isabel's resolution is delightfully ambiguous (does she or does she not marry the Duke" whereas no such license is given to Helen.
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