Pavier quartos

The Pavier quartos, also known as the "False folio," are a group of plays printed in quarto format by William Jaggard for Thomas Pavier in 1619, though some bear earlier false dates. They were sold singly, but also as a bound-together set, hence the nickname "False folio"---the bound-together version has been seen as an attempt at a one-volume edition of Shakespeare's collected plays, preceding the the "First Folio" of 1623. At the time, all were thought to be by Shakespeare. The Folger collection includes one bound-together version (the "Edward Gwynn" copy) and many singletons (or at least, copies that are now singletons).

There is no standard order for the bound-together versions, so the plays are listed in here by "STC number", the number assigned in A.W. Pollard, A Short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English books printed abroad, 1475-1640 (2nd ed.)

• STC 18796: Sir John Oldcastle (not actually by Shakespeare)
• STC 22291: Henry V
• STC 22293: King Lear
• STC 22297: The Merchant of Venice
• STC 22300: The Merry Wives of Windsor
• STC 22303: A Midsummer Night's Dream
• STC 22341: A Yorkshire Tragedy (not actually by Shakespeare)
• STC 26101:
  • Henry VI, Part 2
  • Henry VI, Part 3
  • Pericles

The last STC number in the list is the cause for much confusion for two reasons:

1. It contains two plays printed together with continuous signatures, so only has one STC number
2. The first of those two plays is The Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke...Divided into Two Parts, and those "two parts" correspond to Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3 in the standard form of the Shakespeare canon.

The Edward Gwynn copy is especially confusing because Pericles is separated from the rest of STC 26101, so it contains what is, technically, a "misbound" copy of STC 26101.