Shakespeare Discoveries IV: A Secular Tour of "Falstaffe and the merrie Wives"

A Most pleasant and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr John Falstaffe, and the merrie Wives of Windsor is the full title of a Shakespeare comedy first published in a 1602 Pamphlet edition, a title shortened here to Falstaffe and the merrie Wives. The play was next printed at almost double the length of the Pamphlet version as the third comedy in the 1623 Shakespeare Catalogue, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare Discoveries IV offers a comparative study of the two versions with a complete edition of the text of 1602 on left-hand pages and a complete edition of the text of 1623 on right-hand pages. Correcting the longstanding contention that the version of 1602 is an inferior reduction of that of 1623, commentary throughout consistently shows that the Pamphlet version, by William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was written through and much revised by Ben Jonson for the Catalogue.