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Two Gentlemen of Verona / The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] cover

Two Gentlemen of Verona / The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.]

Chapter 60: Sources
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About This Book

The play follows two close friends whose loyalties are tested when love intervenes: one departs to seek fortune while the other remains at home and then betrays his friend by pursuing the friend’s chosen beloved. Parallel comic business involves foolish rivals, witty servants, and a woman who disguises herself to follow an absent lover. The action moves between city courts and a forest refuge where quarrels and plots come to a head, exploring themes of friendship versus romantic passion, the fickleness of affection, and the possibility of forgiveness, concluding with reconciliation and restored social order.

Sources

The editors’ Preface (e-text 23041) discusses the 17th- and 18th-century editions in detail; the newer (19th-century) editions are simply listed by name. The following editions may appear in the Notes. All inset text is quoted from the Preface.

Folios:
F1 1623; F2 (no date given); F3 1663; F4 1685.

“The five plays contained in this volume occur in the first Folio in the same order, and ... were there printed for the first time.”

Early editions:
Rowe 1709
Pope 1715

“Pope was the first to indicate the place of each new scene; as, for instance, Tempest, I. 1. ‘On a ship at sea.’ He also subdivided the scenes as given by the Folios and Rowe, making a fresh scene whenever a new character entered—an arrangement followed by Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson. For convenience of reference to these editions, we have always recorded the commencement of Pope’s scenes.”

Theobald 1733
Hanmer (“Oxford edition”) 1744
Warburton 1747
Johnson 1765
Capell 1768; also Capell’s annotated copy of F2
Steevens 1773
Malone 1790
Reed 1803

Later editions:
Singer, Knight, Cornwall, Collier, Phelps, Halliwell, Dyce, Staunton