Excerpt from Four Quarto: Editions of Plays by Shakespeare, the Property of the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace

First Folio, Pericles was first associated with Shakespeare's collected works in an appendix to the Third Folio (of 1664).

The separate quarto editions of the seventeen plays by Shakespeare, which were printed in his lifetime or before the issue of the First Folio, form, in the absence of his manuscripts, the most interesting and the most valuable personal memorials of his work which are now accessible. The conditions, in which plays were at the time supplied by dramatists to the theatre, render it improbable that Shakespeare was himself responsible for the publication of these quartos. There can be small doubt that they were publisher's ventures which were undertaken independently of his control or wish. They differ very greatly in textual accuracy and authority.

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