When Shakespeare was a boy, almost no one owned books.
Johannes Gutenberg had developed movable type in 1455, a century earlier. That meant that separate pieces of type could be used to print each letter. It also made it possible to print many copies of a book. Before that, books had been handwritten and expensive. They were mainly limited to official and scholarly subjects. Most were in Latin.
Even after Shakespeare became a playwright, the book business was still new. Many early editions of his plays were full of printing errors. They are still valuable; they contain lines that aren’t in the First Folio, which was printed after Shakespeare’s death. So, what are the “real” versions? Join the debate.