Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The Bad Quartos and their Contexts

There are forty-one problematic play texts, variously classified as bad quartos or memorial reconstructions, from Shakespeare’s time. Textual criticism of these quartos has been fraught with assumption and contradiction. Laurie Maguire examines all the texts in detail. She deconstructs the theories of W. W. Greg and his followers, scrutinizing the methods by which critics diagnose texts as ‘bad’, and examines the historical evidence for the concept of memorial reconstruction (compilation from the recollection of actors or spectators). The valuable contextual material includes fresh analysis of the New Bibliographers, the rise of English studies, Renaissance oral culture and textual problems in non-suspect texts. The assembly of textual information about all the suspect texts in tabular form makes the book an essential reference work. The result is a study which covers a vast textual subject without sacrificing detail.

• Like Hope’s book (see above) this has implications for the question of authorship and the reliability of many Shakespearean texts • The 43 tables are a handy ready-reference tool

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Part I: 1. Introduction; 2. The rise of the new bibliography; 3. Memorial reconstruction and its discontents; 4. Reporting speech, reconstructing texts; 5. Memory; Part II: 6. Introduction; 7. Diagnosing memorial reconstruction: the poem, the play, the text; 8. ‘Tables … stored full’; 9. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.