The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe

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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: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. 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