Few people know that many of William Shakespeares plays were published posthumously. Virginia Fellows Shakespeare Code includes an intriguing discussion of works attributed to Shakespeare that appeared after his passing in 1616. Shakespeare had been dead for seven years when the First Folio of his collected works was published. This celebrated Folio edition contained 36 plays, half of which had never been seen before. According to Fellows, many of the previously unpublished plays were entered into the Stationers Register on November 8, 1623, just in time for publication a little later that same month.
More fascinating still, a number of plays published previously were altered. There were deletions as well as new additions. Fellows writes: In the First Folio, The Merry Wives of Windsor has twelve hundred more lines than it had in 1602, Titus Andronicus has a whole new scene, and Henry V is double the length of the 1600 edition.
Given the fact that Shakespeare was long gone and had left not a single manuscript behind, legitimate questions arise: Who edited the old plays? Where did the new plays come from, and why were they written?
Fellows, a firm supporter...
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