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Second quarto is a bibliographic term, most often encountered in the study of English literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in regard to the early printings of the plays of English Renaissance theatre.

In the Tudor and Stuart periods, stage plays were generally published individually in quarto format. This was almost universally true^[1] in the years before 1616; even after the first large collections of plays were published—the first folio collection of Ben Jonson's works in 1616, and the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623—individual quarto publication was still the most common format for printed plays.

Popular works were published in multiple editions over time, then as now. The first quarto edition (Q1) of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, the most popular play of the era, was published in 1598, the second quarto (Q2) was issued in 1599, and subsequent quartos appeared in 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622, 1632, and 1639. The first quarto edition of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus was published in 1604, the second quarto in 1609.

Other types of literary works besides plays were published in multiple editions in quarto format. One example: the first quarto of Marlowe's narrative poem Hero and Leander was issued in 1598; a second quarto, containing Marlowe's original plus George Chapman's continuation of the poem, was published later in the same year. Q1 of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis was printed in 1593, Q2 in 1594.

1. ^ Exceptions can be cited: the 1590 first printing of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Parts 1 and 2, was doubly unusual in that the book contained two plays instead of one, and was printed in octavo format rather than quarto.

• Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.

• bad quarto
• first quarto
• first folio
• second folio
• false folio
• foul papers
• Shakespeare's Editors

• one reference
• British library reference
• Another British library reference