eo and Juliet_ and _Henry
V_--began with pirated editions not bearing the author's name.
Three--_Richard II, Richard III, I Henry IV_--were all followed by
quartos with the poet's name upon them. The sixth play, _Titus
Andronicus_, was one of his earliest works, and its authorship is even
now not absolutely certain.

Since the name of a popular dramatist on the {120} title-page was a
distinct source of revenue to the publisher after 1598, it was to be
expected that anonymous plays should be ascribed in some cases to
William Shakespeare by an unscrupulous or a misinformed printer. Here
arose the Shakespeare 'apocrypha,' which is discussed in a following
chapter.

A new problem in the history of Shakespearean quartos has been
presented since 1903 by a study of the quartos of 1619. Briefly
summarized, the theory which is best defended at the present time is,
that in that year Thomas Pavier and William Jaggard, two printers of
London, decided at first to get up a collected quarto edition of
Shakespeare's plays, but on giving up this idea, they issued nine plays
in a uniform size and on paper bearing identical watermarks, which were
either at that time or later bound up together as a collected set of
Shakespeare's plays in a single volume.[2] These plays are the _Whole
Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of Lancaster and York_,
"printed for T. P."; _A Yorkshire Tragedie_, "printed for T. P., 1619";
_Pericles_, "printed for T. P. 1619"; _Merry Wives_, "printed for
Arthur Johnson, 1619"; _Sir John Oldcastle_, "printed for T. P., 1600";
_Henry V_, "printed for T. P., 1608"; _Merchant of Venice_, "printed by
J. Roberts, 1600"; _King Lear_, "printed for Nathaniel Butter, 1608";
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, "printed for Thomas Fisher, 1600."

Of these plays, the _Whole Contention_, the _Yorkshire {121} Tragedie_,
and _Sir John Oldcastle_ are spurious, but had been attributed to
Shakespeare in earlier quartos. The five plays dated 1600 or 1608 in
each case duplicated a quarto actually printed in the year claimed by
the Pavier reprint; so that this earlier dating was an attempt to
deceive the public into believing they were purchasing the original
editions.

Under the date of the 8th of November, 1623, Edward Blount and Isaac
Jaggard entered for their copy in the Stationers' Register "Mr. William
Shakspeers Comedyes, Histories and Tragedyes, soe manie of the said
copyes as are not formerly entred to other men viz^t, Co