This volume was the first book devoted entirely to an investigation of the many problems associated with the relation between the 'stolne and surreptitious copies' of which Heminge and Condell complain in their address 'To the great Variety of Readers,' and the corresponding plays of Shakespeare printed by them in the first folio.

For nearly two and a half centuries prior to the publication of the important Cambridge Shakespeare of 1863-6, many editors and commentators held firmly to the opinion that these words condemned all the quarto editions published in the life-time of the poet. They preferred to rely on the folio version for the text of a play although careful collation had previously proved that the folio text of this play had been set up from one of the earlier quarto editions.