London - William Shakespeare

The fame of Shakespeare
rests on his incomparable dramas.
There is no evidence that he ever
intended to publish them
and his premature death in 1616
made this the interest of no one else.
Heminge and Condell
had been co-partners with him
in the Globe Theatre Southwark,
and from the accumulated plays there
of thirty five years
with great labour selected them
No men then living were so competent
having acted with him
in them for many years
and well knowing his manuscripts
they were published in 1623 in Folio
thus giving away
their private rights therein.
What they did was priceless.
for the whole of his manuscripts
with almost all those of the dramas
of the period have perished.

To the Memory of
John Heminge
and
Henry Condell
Fellow Actors
and Personal Friends
of Shakespeare
they lived many years in this
parish and are buried here

to their disinterested affection
the world owes all
that it calls SHAKESPEARE
they alone
collected his dramatic writings
regardless of pecuniary loss
and without the hope of any profit
gave them to the world
THEY THUS MERITED
THE GRATITUDE OF MANKIND

Extract from the Preface
to the First Folio of 1623

To the great Variety of Readers

It had bene a thing, we confesse,
worthie to have bene wished,
that the Author himselfe had liv'd.
to have set forth, and overseene
his owne writings; but since it hath
bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death
departed from that right,
we pray you do not envie his Friends,
the office of their care, and paine,
to have collected & publish'd them; …
absolute in their numbers,
as he conceived them.
Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature,
was a most gentle expresser of it.
His mind and Hand went together:
and what he thought, he uttered
with that easinesse, that wee have scarse
received from him a blot in his papers.

Iohn Heminge.
Henrie Condell.

John Heminge
lived in this parish
upwards of forty two years
and in which he was married
He had fourteen children
thirteen of whom were baptized,
four buried, and one married here
He was buried here
October 12 1630.
His wife was also buried here.

Henry Condell
lived in this parish
upwards of thirty years
He had nine children
eight of whom were baptized here
and six buried
He was buried here
December 29 1627.
His wife was also buried here.

"Let all the ends thou aim'st at
be thy country's thy God's and truth's"

henry viii act 3 scene 2

Statues - Hither & Thither

William Shakespeare

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