Shakespeare as Author: The Plays

Shakespeare's plays were printed mainly as quartos until the First Folio of 1623 when they were collected in one place for the first time. Only eighteen of the 38 plays were printed as quartos, leaving the bulk of his plays known to us only from the Folio.

The plays were printed mainly without any involvement from Shakespeare himself.

[A]t least in his role as playwright, Shakespeare had no obvious interest in the printed book. Performance was the only form of publication he sought for his plays. He made no effort to have them published and none to stop the publication of the often poorly printed versions that did reach the bookstalls.

Shakespeare made his money, solidifying the plays at least in his mind as commodities to be used and profited from, by the performances on stage. As we've seen, he was involved in the printing of the two long poems under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, but there is no indication he had anything to do with the plays. As a result, the quality of the quarto editions of plays varies greatly. King Lear, for example, was printed in a quarto in 1608 (Q1), then in 1619 (Q2) after Shakespeare's 1616 death, and then in the First Folio (F1).

This version [First Folio] of the play is markedly different than Q1: there are about 100 lines that are in F1 but not Q1, and about 300 lines (including the entirety of [act.scene] 4.3) that are in Q1 but omitted in F1; there are also differences in about 800 words between the two versions. 

Q2 included lines not present in either of the other two versions. It's believed Q1, known as the bad quarto, was a reconstruction by a member of the cast and perhaps shows an "as acted" script of one performance. If Shakespeare had been involved in the publication, it is likely he would have provided a manuscript or authorized version in order to keep a "bad" quarto from being published in the first place.

King Lear's 1608 quarto title page

Other plays were printed in numerous editions; for example, Richard III went through seven printings from its initial publication in 1597, through the Folio, and to 1634, showing how popular the plays were and demonstrating a demand for them as printed works, not just performances. 

Works Cited:

Kastan, David Scott (2001). Shakespeare and the Book. Cambridge University Press. Preview Available: http://books.google.com/books?id=h7RlBXLunicC

https://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-works