Two modern spectacles have become so familiar that we find it difficult to imagine even a prehistoric state without them: the author stalking a publisher, and the play treated as pure literature. There are, indeed, many plays—and even some successful ones—that do not reach print; but the closet-drama is established, and unquestioned as a literary form, in prose as well as verse. Hence it is difficult to visualize conditions that no more than three hundred years ago were the reverse of these: the play regarded as mere stage directions, not at all comparable with pure literature in prose or verse; and the publisher pursuing, satyr-like, the nymph-coy author for something to print. Yet the understanding of these surprising conditions is a pre-requisite to any establishing of Shaksperean or other Elizabethan texts, especially plays; for on it rests finally the main question of authenticity. A short survey of the following four aspects of Elizabethan publishing may help to show both their universality and their significance.