The Importance of Comparing Shakespeare's Works

textual critics have tended to take Hemming and Condell's account of the different printed versions of Shakespeare for the truth. Bad quartos usually thought to be different because they'd been mangled somehow by people who aren't the author, actors or printers. But more recent textual criticism has been less certain that bad quartos should be thought of as bad. Different versions of different lines can open up quite different meanings.