The Bodleian Library in Oxford and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC have announced plans to reproduce all 75 editions of William Shakespeare's plays printed before 1641, online.
"There are no surviving manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays in his handwriting so the quartos are the closest we can get to what Shakespeare really wanted," said Bodleian spokeswoman Oana Romocea.
"Some quartos do, however, have his annotations around the printed text."
Many of the quartos are currently only available to scholars and the project is aimed to make the prints more accessible to the general public. The libraries say the downloading of the quartos will begin in April and take about a year to complete.
"We (at the Bodleian) have about 55 copies, although some of them are duplicates," said Romocea.
"Each quarto is different, so it's very interesting from a research perspective to compare the quartos.
"For example, some of the famous lines in 'Hamlet' exist in one quarto and in another they don't, or they are very different."
"Some quartos do, however, have his annotations around the printed text."
Many of the quartos are currently only available to scholars and the project is aimed to make the prints more accessible to the general public. The libraries say the downloading of the quartos will begin in April and take about a year to complete.
"We (at the Bodleian) have about 55 copies, although some of them are duplicates," said Romocea.
"Each quarto is different, so it's very interesting from a research perspective to compare the quartos.
"For example, some of the famous lines in 'Hamlet' exist in one quarto and in another they don't, or they are very different."
