The Fair Penitent and Jane Shore Author:Nicholas Rowe General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1907 Original Publisher: Heath Subjects: Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Drama / Shakespeare Literary Criticism / Shakespeare Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy... more » the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE TEXT The first edition (1703) is the basis of this text. In the collating, a copy of the first edition in the Library of Harvard University, a copy of the 1714 edition in the British Museum, and a copy of the 1732 edition in the Library of Yale University have been used. These are in order the earliest editions of which the editor has been able to find trace. The 1714 edition, perhaps the last in Rowe's lifetime, is practically a reprint of the first, with slight uniform changes in spelling (.£"., 'would for ivou"d, ta'en for ta'ne). The 1733 text shows a few very minor differences from the two preceding, but nothing of importance ; indeed the collation makes clear that successive editions held very closely to the first text. The punctuation of the first edition, like that of all early eighteenth century books, is excessive and has been cut down and modified to bring it into conformity with modern usage. When the punctuation here used changes in the slightest degree the sense of the first edition, the original punctuation is given in a footnote. Unless otherwise specified, variants are to be credited to the edition in which they appear for the first time following the first edition. Any addition to the stage-directions of the first edition has been placed in brackets. French's acting version of the play shows variants in some places made necessary by the great number of lines omitted. F is the abbreviation used for variants from this acting version. chapter{Section 4...« less