From the evidence available Henry IV, part 1 appears to have been a very popular play and perhaps even the hit of the 1597-98 theatre season. There were several references to Shakespeare and the play during this year. Two quarto editions appeared in 1598 alone. Six quarto editions appeared in Shakespeare's lifetime. In the last four the title page reads, "Newly corrected by W. Shakespeare." This is probably not true, printers just liked to include such a claim to sell more books. Most modern editors base their texts on the first and second quarto, both printed, as I said in 1598. There is only a fragment of the actual first edition still remaining, so the second has to be used as well.

The other reason there is a good deal of comment on the play is that in the early productions of the play Falstaff is named "Sir John Oldcastle." There actually was a Sir John Oldcastle, although, he had been dead many years. Nevertheless, his relatives greatly objected to the treatment Shakespeare had given him. There are some records of these objections and by the time the play was printed Shakespeare changes the name to Falstaff. One assumes that the name was changed immediately in the stage productions.

Some scholars believe that much more than just the name was changed at a fairly early stage and before the play was published. But that is of no great consequence to us in this class, and frankly remains just another footnote on scholarly detective work on Shakespeare.

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