ABSTRACT
The edition prepared by the poet-laureate Nicholas Rowe and published in 1709 may be said to mark the beginning of a rapid and continued growth in the readers of Shakespeare. The pronunciation of London was to be heard on the stage if nowhere else in the United States, and Shakespeare was interpreted by the greatest actors of different nations. Away from the Atlantic coast the stage took on strange methods and forms, but it was never without Shakespeare. Shakespeare began to be a factor in popular education at about the same time in England as in the United States. In looking at the theatre we found Shakespeare tried in the privations and crudities of a pioneering people forming the outposts of civilization.
