farfel_n03_020_141

Vol III W.W. Greg Z 1008 B58I No. 24 Ref. P. 1120
The printer of The Comedies appears from the
ornaments used, to have been Robert Roberts, + he
also printed the preliminaries (Sl. Quart, 1951) F.T. Bowers
the printer or printers of the later sextions have
not been identified.
It is clear that the copy, apart from the preliminaries
was divided into 3 sections - a single, double + triple
alphabet of signatures being alloted to each
1st Comedies
2nd Histories + 1st 4 Tragedies (additional sig.
marked with a star)
3rd remaining Tragedies + the additional plays,
ran into a 4 fold alphabet.

Updike - "The 1st quarto was Venus + Adonis printed in 1593. The 1st folio
appeared in 1623. The quartos were printed from rough roman
Types, with rather heavy title pages, in which capitals +
lower case letters were used for titles quite indiscriminately.
The folios were printed in double comumn with the text in
roman + the names of the characters in italic; and although
the prefatory matter was set in handsome type, the body
of the work had from a printer's standpoint no particular
typographic interest.

The typography + press work was divided among 3 seperate printers
The type employed throughout is universally larger than in the
3rd folio, but all 3 printers did not use exactly the same sixe.
The paper was made by Van Duventegard of Holland.
THe expens of printing was apparently born by H. Herringman,
the friend + publisher of Dryden, who was one of the 1st
English publishers as we now understand that term.