In 1619, just a few years before the release of the 1623 First Folio, publisher William Jaggard printed a series of playbooks which seems to be the first attempt to produce a collected version of Shakespeare’s work. It included two plays that are now known not to be by Shakespeare: A Yorkshire Tragedy and Sir John Oldcastle.
Roger Stritmatter published an article on these sometimes-called Pavier quartos, or False Folio, in a 1998 Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Newsletter, “Bestow how, and when you list…”: Susan Vere, William Jaggard and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio. Stritmatter identified a connection between Jaggard and Susan Vere, Edward de Vere’s daughter: the publication by Jaggard of a major folio volume the same year the Pavier quartos were issued. As Stritmatter noted, the dedication of this volume bears a striking resemblance to the wording of the First Folio’s dedication.
In the Spring 1957 Shakespeare Fellowship Newsletter, page 10, Gwyneth Bowen in her review of The Shakespeare First Folio by W.W. Greg quotes Greg as saying of this collection that “… the original plan was for a regular collection” but the plan seems to have been abandoned owing to the intervention of The Lord Chamberlain, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Pembroke’s letter does not survive but is referred to by his successor as Lord Chamberlain, his brother Philip, Edward de Vere’s son in law: “…take order for the stay of any further Impression of any of the Playes or interludes of his Majestes servantes without their consentes.”
It’s an interesting take on the role played by the Herbert brothers who were the dedicatees of the First Folio.
