Early Editions: The first texts of Shakespeare's plays fall into two categories: quarto editions, which were relatively inexpensive volumes containing the text of one play, and the much larger, more expensive and impressive First Folio of 1623, prepared by Shakespeare's collaborators in the theater after his death.

Individual plays begin to appear in quarto in the 1590s, and are often divided into "good" and "bad" quartos, with the latter being regarded by many scholars as memorial reconstructions by actors, and containing many errors and inconsistencies. However, this view is much debated in the field. For Hamlet, there is a "bad" First Quarto, published in 1603, a "good" Second Quarto (the longest of the three early texts), published in 1604/5 and the First Folio version. Each has significant differences from the others.