Editing Hamlet (section)

===Length===
The First Quarto (1603) text of ''Hamlet'' contains 15,983 words, the Second Quarto (1604) contains 28,628 words, and the First Folio (1623) contains 27,602 words. Counting the number of lines varies between editions, partly because prose sections in the play may be formatted with varied lengths.{{sfn|Thompson|Taylor|2006a|pp=80-81}} Editions of ''Hamlet'' that are created by conflating the texts of the Second Quarto and the Folio are said to have approximately 3,900 lines;{{sfn|Barnet|1998|p=lxiv}} the number of lines varies between those editions based on formatting the prose sections, counting methods, and how the editors have joined the texts together.{{sfn|Thompson|Taylor|2006a|pp=92-93}} ''Hamlet'' is by far the longest play that Shakespeare wrote, and one of the longest plays in the [[Western canon]]. It might require more than four hours to stage;{{sfn|Evans|1974}} a typical Elizabethan play would need two to three hours.{{sfn|Hirrel|2010}} It is speculated that because of the considerable length of Q2 and F1, there was an expectation that those texts would be abridged for performance, or that Q2 and F1 may have been aimed at a reading audience.{{sfn|Thompson|Taylor|2006a|p=84}}

That Q1 is so much shorter than Q2 has spurred speculation that Q1 is an early draft, or perhaps an adaptation, a bootleg copy, or a stage adaptation. On the title page of Q2, its text is described as "newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was." That is probably a comparison to Q1.{{sfn|Thompson|Taylor|2006a|pp=80-81}}