Play Quartos

A quarto is so named as each printed sheet of paper is folded twice, to create four leaves. This format is particularly suited for the widespread printing of drama: smaller than folio size, and sold looseleaf to be bound by the purchaser, they were a cheaper option for the publisher to produce, and affordable for those wishing to reproduce their favourite plays by reading aloud in the home.

Play Quarto: Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

This image shows a manuscript annotation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, likely in the hand of James Duport, Master of Magdalene 1668-1679. His brief note clears up an infamous matter of staging: ‘exit ghost’ is written in the margin. Though an obscure figure in the College’s history, what is recorded of Duport suggests he may well have had a great interest in drama. Elected university praevaricator in 1631, Duport was an accomplished poet and wit known to '[break] into verse on the slightest provocation.' (J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, (1908), p.349–50.)

Play Quarto: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, by Francis Beaumont

This image shows the title page of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a bawdy satire of chivalric romance found in a similarly bound quarto. In 1662, Samuel Pepys caught the last act of this play, which ‘pleased [him] not at all.’

Play Quarto: The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy, by John Webster

Preceding the title page of this play, we find another note from James Duport: a manuscript contents of the tragedies within. Pepys saw this play on 30 September 1662, reverting to his ‘former practice of loving plays and wine.’ The play’s theme of a secret tryst appears to have made him rather uncomfortable, however. On his second viewing of this ‘sorry play’, he ‘sat with little pleasure, for fear of my wife’s seeing me look about, and so I was uneasy all the while, though I desire and resolve never to give her trouble of that kind more.’

Play Quarto: The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, by Henry Porter – PL 939(2)

This somewhat obscure play is the only surviving work of playwright Henry Porter. As evidenced by Pepys’ possession of this text, it was a relatively popular work, and was succeeded by two sequels: ‘The Second Part of the Two Angry Women of Abingdon,’ and ‘The Four Merry Women of Abingdon.’ Highlighting the rather seedy side of seventeenth-century theatre, Porter was ultimately stabbed to death by a fellow playwright.

Play Quarto: The Bondman, by Philip Massinger

Of all the plays in this exhibition, it was Philip Massinger’s ‘The Bondman’ that Pepys liked the most. He saw it acted three times in 1661, and no less than seven times across the span of the diaries. The role of the bondman himself was famously staged by Thomas Betterton, whose performance Pepys frequently praises, once naming him ‘the best actor in the world.’

Play Quarto: Bussy D’Ambois, by George Chapman – PL 1075(4)

On the title page of this tragedy by George Chapman is the note: ‘printed by A.N. for Robert Lunne, 1641.’ ‘A.N.’ is Alice Norton, notable as one of the few female printers – one of some 130 – who were active in Britain at this time. These women were generally the widows or other close relations of established printers, permitted to inherit the deceased’s guild privilege, and thus permitted to run the business in his place. Many women printers produced broadsides and pamphlets, but also, as in this example, play quartos. Pepys’s wife Elizabeth saw this play in 1661, and Pepys himself notes reading this copy – ‘a good play I bought to-day’ – the following year.

All images are the copyright of the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College Cambridge (Old Library Images) or the Pepys Library, Magdalene College Cambridge (Pepys Library Images).

To reproduce these images in any format, including online, permission from the College must be sought.