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First quarto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
First quarto is a bibliographic term, usually encountered in the study of English literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in regard to the early printings of the plays of English Renaissance theatre.
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In the Tudor and Stuart periods, stage plays were generally published individually in quarto format. Much language was updated; there are almost 1,700 changes from the First Folio.
Popular works were published in multiple editions over time, then as now. They were small and cheap pamphlets called quarto due to way they were printed.
Quartos were printed on the two sides of large paper sheets, four printed pages to the side. This was folded twice and bound, giving eight printed pages. A few plays were printed in octavo, the sheet being folded thrice and yielding sixteen smaller pages for each "gathering."
None of Shakespeare’s original manuscripts survives, thus printed texts are the only source of his works. The quarto texts are the earliest references, and may preserve the foul papers (fair copies) he originally wrote.