Twelfth Night
Book Description
Twelfth Night did not appear in print during the lifetime of its author. It was first printed in the folio of 1623, as evidenced by the entry of November 8in theS tationers Register in that year. The absence of a quarto edition is little to be regretted, however, as the text of the play thus produced is exceptionally free from corruptions, its few errors being merely typographical. The best eviden...
MoreTwelfth Night did not appear in print during the lifetime of its author. It was first printed in the folio of 1623, as evidenced by the entry of November 8in theS tationers Register in that year. The absence of a quarto edition is little to be regretted, however, as the text of the play thus produced is exceptionally free from corruptions, its few errors being merely typographical. The best evidence of the date of composition ofT welfth Night is afforded by theD iary of one John Manningham, at that time a student in theM iddle Temple. In this there is found an entry under date ofF ebruary 2, 1601, as follows :A tour feast we had a play called Twelue Night, or What You Will, much like The Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called I nganni. A good practise in it to make theS teward beleeve his Lady widowe was in love with him, by counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, etc., and then when he came to practise making him beleeue they took him to be mad How much earlier than this date it was wT itten and produced can only be conjectured, but it can scarcely be believed that theB enchers would have selected for their Candlemas festivity a wholly untried play. It is probable that it was originally performed by theL ord Chamberlain sC ompany, and thatS hakespeare, at that time a member of this body, played a part in it; but of this there is no evidence. That the play had an established value from some cause or other is amply shown by the circumstance that the laiyyers paid for the production given before them the then liberal sum of ten pounds. On the authority of Halliwell, Twelfth Night was performed before James I. onE aster Monday, 1618, and again at Candlemas, 1623, by the King sS ervants, under
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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