Stolne and Surreptitious Copies

This volume was the first book devoted entirely to an investigation of the many problems associated with the relation between the 'stolne and surreptitious copies' of which Heminge and Condell complain in their address 'To the great Variety of Readers,' and the corresponding plays of Shakespeare printed by them in the first folio. For nearly two and a half centuries prior to the publication of the important Cambridge Shakespeare of 1863-6, many editors and commentators held firmly to the opinion