The year of Johnson’s birth saw the publication of the first modern edition of Shakespeare’s works. The plays had been collected into an imposing folio volume in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, and this had been reprinted in 1632, 1663, and 1685. But not until Nicholas Rowe’s six-volume edition of 1709 did what could be considered an edited version of Shakespeare appear.

Rowe, a popular dramatist of the period, concentrated on the theatrical presentation of the plays: he introduced act and scene divisions, noted the location of the action, regularized entrances and exits, and included the dramatis personae for each play – all features included in virtually all modern editions of Shakespeare, and unavailable before Rowe. His editorial labor also included modernizing some of the spelling and punctuation of Shakespeare’s text and producing an account of Shakespeare’s life which was to become the standard biography of the playwright for much of the eighteenth century.