Editing Richard III (play) (section)

==Date and text==
[[File:Second Folio Title Page of Richard III.jpg|thumb|The first page of ''Richard III'', printed in the Second Folio of 1632]]
''Richard III'' is believed to be one of [[Chronology of Shakespeare plays|Shakespeare's earlier plays]], preceded only by the three parts of ''Henry VI'' and perhaps ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'' and a handful of comedies. It is believed to have been written {{Circa|1592}}–1594. Although ''Richard III'' was entered into the [[Stationers' Register|Register]] of the [[Stationers' Company]] on 20 October 1597 by the bookseller [[Andrew Wise]], who published the [[first Quarto]] (Q1) later that year (with printing done by [[Valentine Simmes]]),<ref>[http://www.s4ulanguages.com/william.html] See title page of facsimile of the original 1st edition (1597)</ref> [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s ''[[Edward II (play)|Edward&nbsp;II]]'', which cannot have been written much later than 1592 (Marlowe died in 1593), is thought to have been influenced by it. A [[second Quarto]] (Q2) followed in 1598, printed by Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise, containing an attribution to Shakespeare on its title page.<ref name="BL">British Library</ref> Q3 appeared in 1602, Q4 in 1605, Q5 in 1612, and Q6 in 1622, the frequency attesting to its popularity. The [[First Folio]] version followed in 1623.

The Folio is longer than the Quarto and contains some fifty additional passages amounting to more than two hundred lines. However, the Quarto contains some twenty-seven passages amounting to about thirty-seven lines that are absent from the Folio.<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.2|date=September 2013}} The two texts also contain hundreds of other differences, including the transposition of words within speeches, the movement of words from one speech to another, the replacement of words with near-synonyms, and many changes in grammar and spelling.<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.2|date=September 2013}}

At one time, it was thought that the Quarto represented a separate revision of the play by Shakespeare. However, since the Quarto contains many changes that can only be regarded as mistakes, it is now widely believed that the Quarto was produced by [[memorial reconstruction]].<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.3–10|date=September 2013}} It is thought likely that the Quarto was collectively produced by a company of actors remembering their lines. It is unknown why the actors did this, but it may have been to replace a missing [[prompt book]].<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.19–21|date=September 2013}} The Folio is regarded as having much higher authority than the Quarto, but because the Folio edition was [[collated]] by the printers against a Quarto (probably Q3), some errors from the Quarto found their way into the Folio.<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.2|date=September 2013}} Some parts of the Folio (the beginning of Act III and much of Act V) are clearly copied, with little change, direct from the Quarto.<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.33|date=September 2013}} The Folio also has its own corruptions and omissions, and corrections have to be supplied, where possible, from the Quarto.<ref name="Hammond"/>{{rp|p.50|date=September 2013}}