Abstract
IT IS NOW GENERALLY AGREED that the Quarto edition of Love's Labor's Lost (Imprinted at London by W[illiam] W[hite] I for Cutbert Burby. / 1598, as the title-page declares)' was set from Shakespeare's foul papers,2 that the loose ends duplicates scattered throughout the text derive from authorial revision.3 Evidently, V. ii. 847-81 replaces 827-32,4 IV. iii. 296318 is superseded by what follows, my selfe, and at V. i. 133 is a scrap of rejected dialogue.5 It has been suggested, perhaps implausibly, that V. ii. 132-33 reworks the preceding couplet.6 I have argued elsewhere that Shakespeare substituted II. i. 180-93 for 11428 at a late stage in the composition of the foul papers that compositorial misunderstanding of his revision produced the notorious Katharine-Rosaline tangle. Agreement is far from general, however, where a second, post-foul-paper, stage of Shakespearean revision is concerned. I think that Stanley Wells is right to demand respect for the Folio
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