Shakespearean Suspect Texts
The 'Bad' Quartos and their Contexts

An examination of forty-one Shakespearean play texts, the 'bad quartos' or 'memorial reconstructions'.

Laurie E. Maguire (Author)

9780521033480, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 February 2007

448 pages, 43 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.662 kg

"The study is filled both with precious gems...and with small nuggets...[Maguire] shines in a real intellectual forte..." Patrick Cheney, MSA Book Reviews

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS]