The First Quarto of King Henry V (review)

The First Quarto of King Henry V. Edited by Andrew Gurr. The New Cambridge Shakespeare: The Early Quartos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv + 122. $55.00 cloth.

It cannot be an easy task to edit Shakespeare these days, particularly given the seismic shifts that have fractured the textual and bibliographical bedrock over the past three decades. While new and novel modes of editing continue to emerge, so, too, do our approaches to interpreting the social, economic, and artistic pressures affecting the circumstances of performance and publication. According to a statement by Brian Gibbons, general editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare, "There is no avoiding edited Shakespeare, the question is only what kind of editing" (v). Gibbons answers this question by stating that one of the Early Quartos series' "precise aims" is to publish the early witnesses to Shakespeare in a form that is accessible, "provides the most up-to-date and expert scholarship and engages with the key issues of how these texts differ from other quarto versions and from the First Folio" (v). I will address accessibility in a moment; first I'd like to examine the vexing, contentious, at times bewildering matter of scholarship and key issues.

One of the main assumptions behind the interest in Q1 Henry V centers on the belief that the quarto is "closely based on the Shakespeare company's own performance script of the play, a text made for or from its first performances in 1599" (ix). Assessing the evidence and arguments surrounding this position can prove daunting. For example, Kathleen Irace's 1991 examination of early revisions employs a line-by-line, computer-assisted comparison of the Q1 and F1 texts, while Thomas L. Berger's 1979 analysis of Q1's printing looks very closely at the printing-house evidence as part of a reconstruction of that book's production.¹ To tackle such a diverse amalgam of criticism requires of the reader a close knowledge of Shakespeare's texts, a familiarity with bibliographical and textual literature, and a basic understanding of how statistical analysis is used in humanistic studies. Furthermore, this body of work is constantly expanding, as a quick glance through Shakespeare Quarterly's annual World Shakespeare Bibliography will readily reveal.

It is most fortunate, then, that Cambridge retained Andrew Gurr (who also edited the New Cambridge Shakespeare Henry V) as the editor of this work. Professor Gurr brings to his task the experience necessary for such an undertaking, and his introduction demonstrates a deft handling of the challenges. This edition proceeds from the position that F1 derives from an "authorial manuscript sold to Shakespeare's playing company" in 1599, and that Q1 is a version of that source manuscript "radically revised by the company for performance at the Globe. . . . in late 1599 or early 1600" (9). Additionally, the copy delivered to Thomas Creede's printing house "was recorded by dictation, chiefly from the rough playscript, helped in places by the players' memories of their parts" and occasionally by reference to the authorial manuscript (9). Gurr's introduction, therefore, must address a number of questions: what are the scholarly arguments behind the idea of Q1 as early performance script; how did the action of aural transcription affect the text, especially concerning changes in lineation, switches between prose and verse, and types of recording errors; what do we know of the play's printing in Creede's house, with particular attention paid to changes due to compositor error; what is the textual relationship between Q1 and F1, and who was responsible for the cuts and revisions; what can we learn from references to Henry V in contemporary sources such as the play Sir John Oldcastle (1600) or Christopher Middleton's poem The Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester (1600), and what do they tell us about the play as it was actually performed? Anyone who reads Gurr's introduction will be impressed with his skill at navigating these difficult waters.

Less convincing...