TITUS ANDRONICUS

Summary

INTRODUCTION

LITERARY HISTORY

The earliest extant edition of Titus Andronicus was published in 1600. This edition, a Quarto, appeared with the following cumbrous title-page: “The most lamenta | ble Romaine Tragedie of Titus | Andronicus. | As it hath sundry times beene playde by the | Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke, the | Earle of Darbie, the Earle of Sussex, and the | Lorde Chamberlaine theyr | Seruants. | AT LONDON. | Printed by I. R. for Edward White | and are to bee solde at his shoppe, at the little North doore of Paules, at the signe of | the Gun. 1600.

Of this edition only two copies are known to exist. A second Quarto, printed from the first, but introducing a few conjectural changes, dates from 1611. Titus Andronicus was included in the First Folio, and of the play as it there stands the Cambridge editors remark: “The First Folio text was printed from a copy of the Second Quarto which, perhaps, was in the library of the theatre, and had some MS. alterations and additions made to the stage-directions. Here, as elsewhere, the printer of the Folio has been very careless as to metre. It is remarkable that the Folio contains a whole scene, act iii. sc. 2, not found in the Quartos, but agreeing too closely in style with the main portion of the play to allow of the supposition that it is due to a different author. The scene may have been supplied to the players’ copy of Q. 2 from a manuscript in their possession” (Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. vi. p. xii).