Folio Shakespeare texts and their Quarto and Octavo antecedents

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This project aims to use statistical methods to assess different versions of Shakepeare’s plays. The Shakespeare First Folio is the most important source for the texts of Shakespeare's plays, but the dates of some Folio and rival versions, and the nature of their transmission from an original manuscript, are disputed. There is uncertainty whether some highly divergent versions represent authorial revisions, or adaptations for reading, or for touring, or simply corruption through careless copying. This project plans to conduct a statistical analysis of the language of the 18 plays that appear both in the Folio and in previous Quarto versions, focusing on patterns of word use and orthography, to provide a better understanding of the Folio and new evidence about the texts of individual plays.