This work explores both the performance features and the provenance of the six early Shakespearean playtexts known as “bad” quartos—the first printed editions of Hamlet, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. First examining the performance features of these playtexts, the book goes on to explore the three main theories concerning the provenance of these texts: authorial revision, memorial reconstruction, and adaptation.
