Reforming the "bad" Quartos: Performance and Provenance of Six Shakespearean First Editions

"The second half of the book explores this theory of the origin of the short quartos, as well as two others: authorial revision and memorial reconstruction. Using a computer-assisted analysis of parallel texts of the six plays, Reforming the "Bad" Quartos demonstrates that actor-reporters were responsible for shaping the short quartos, not Shakespeare himself, for the players apparently reconstructed the plays from their memories of London performances." "If, as this study argues, the actors also adapted the plays, the short quartos preserve the earliest fast-paced popular adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, designed by the actors to please the million."--BOOK JACKET.