How many of his plays were published during his lifetime?
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Answer: B. Only seventeen
Explanation
Only a fraction of Shakespeare's dramatic output appeared in print during his lifetime. Printers produced seventeen individual plays in small quarto booklets before his death. The remaining plays survived in manuscript form until collected in the First Folio. Quarto editions were inexpensive books produced by folding printer sheets twice. Playwrights in Elizabethan times often guarded scripts to prevent rival theater theft. The First Folio of 1623 was the first authoritative collected edition of Shakespeare's plays.
Bibliographical scholars rely on surviving quartos to study early textual variations in plays. Without the later Folio publication, many major plays would have been lost entirely. Book history courses examine early modern publishing practices surrounding dramatic literature. Sixteen plays undercounts the seventeen quarto editions printed while the author lived. Eighteen plays is incorrect because seventeen is the verified bibliographical total. Nineteen plays overcounts the actual number of contemporary quarto printings.
- Subject
- English
- Category
- English Literature
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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