All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the writer of the article to which they are appended. The interpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G. Israel Gollancz, M.A.; H. N. H. Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.; C. H. H. C. H. Herford, Litt.D. = = PREFACE By ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, M.A. THE EDITIONS As You Like It was published for the first time in the First Folio; a Quarto edition was contemplated many years previously, but for some cause or other was "staied,” and the play is mentioned among others in 1623, when Jaggard and Blount obtained permission to print the First Folio, as "not formerly entered to other men." The text of the play in the four Folios is substantially the same, though the Second Folio corrects a few typographical and other errors in the first edition. As You Like It was in all probability produced under circumstances necessitating great haste on the part of the author, and many evidences of this rapidity of composition exist in the text of the play, e. g. (i) in Act I, sc. ii, line 284, Le Beau makes Celia "the taller," which statement seems to contradict Rosalind's description of herself in the next scene (I, iii, 117), “because that I am more than common tall”: (ii) again, in the first Act the second son of Sir Rowland de Boys is referred to as "Jaques," a name subsequently transferred to another and more important character; wherefore when he appears in the last Act he is styled in the Folio merely "second brother": (iii) “old Frederick, your father" (I, ii, 87) seems to refer to the banished duke ("Duke senior"), for to Rosalind, and not to Celia, the words "thy father's love," etc., are assigned in the Folio; either the ascription is incorrect, or "Frederick" is an error for some other name, perhaps for "Ferdinand," as has been suggested; attention should also be called to certain slight inaccuracies, e. g. “Juno's swans" (vide Glos |