Richard III

Early printed texts

The textual history of Richard III is convoluted: the version of the play printed first (and reprinted many times) is probably a text that was written later than the second version of the play printed, but the source for both versions are not clear. The play was first printed in 1597 as a quarto (Q1). That text served as the basis for all subsequent quartos: 1598 (Q2), 1602 (Q3), 1605 (Q4), 1612 (Q5), 1622 (Q6), 1629 (Q7), and 1634 (Q8). A different version of the play was printed in the 1623 First Folio (F1) and reprinted in later folios. The differences between the two versions are both large and small: F has about 200 lines that aren’t in Q, sometimes individual lines but also including a passage of nearly 50 lines; Q, in turn, has about 40 lines that are not in F, including a passage of about 20 lines. (For a more detailed account, read the introduction in the Folger edition of the play.)

Although earlier editors preferred Q to F, in the 20th century, editors began to use F as their base text, although sometimes incorporating aspects of the Q version into their edition. The Folger edition follows F, on the basis that it has fewer errors and fewer gaps, although it does draw also on Q in some passages, particularly 3.1.1–169 and 5.3.52 though the end. In the part of the play that the editors have based on F, pointed brackets are used to indicate readings taken from Q; in the sections where the text is based on Q, square brackets are used to indicate readings taken from F. As with all Folger editions, readings that do not come from any of the early printed texts are indicated with half-brackets.