Notes on "Back by Popular Demand"

The absence of the choruses from the quarto makes that text fundamentally different from the folio, and where critics like to point to the ambiguity of national politics and militarism that Henry V implies, the textual justification for those implications are found only in the folio text. The only reference to a contemporary event in the canon, the comparison to Essex's expedition, and the reminder that all of Henry's gains will be lost by his successor are both absent from the quarto text (315).

Despite the assumption that the folio text of Henry V is set from the "acting edition" of the play, there is no evidence to support this, and while we will never know what was actually acted on the London stages, it is quite probable that the quarto text actually represents a closer approximation to performance than the folio (316).

Greg's theory of memorially reconstructed texts does not adequately account for the gaps between the quarto and folio text: whole scenes and sense-changing speeches are completely left out, and the theory of an actor with a bad memory creating a transcription cannot account for the absence of such crucial material (317).

Wells and Taylor argue that the quarto of Henry V represents a memorial construction of a previously performed text cut for touring, and argue that the reduction in the quarto removes thirteen speaking parts (321 - 322). King, of course, disagrees.

Taylor himself admits problems with his theory: cast reduction cannot have been the motivation for the removal of the first scene, which casts a cynical eye on the military affair as the English Court tries to invent reasons to invade France, or of the Jamy/MacMorris scene, or of the substitution of Clarence for Bedford, or of some of the cuts in the Harfleur scene (322).

"No single hypothesis is likely to be able to explain all the instances of textual divergence; and... it is better to admit this in advance than be forced to introduce exceptions that shake the primary hypothesis at its roots" (322 - 323).

English monarchs were always interested in controlling the narrative of history, and Elizabeth was no exception. The printing of Q Henry V, coming as it did on the heels of the Essex rebellion, The LC's Men's involvement in the presentation of Henry IV the night before, and in the face of a 1 June 1599 Bishop's Order prohibiting the printing of histories, was likely to be censored if the LC's men did not censor the text themselves; removing the choruses and other controversial scenes turns the play into an unproblematic celebration of a popular monarch, whom audiences would  have likely instinctively linked with Elizabeth (325 - 330).

Summary

Theatrical considerations may not be the only ones that lead to the abridgment of a text, whether for print, performance, or both. Patterson succinctly demonstrates how the quarto version of Henry V could represent an edition of the text made for political expediency, and creates an implicit warning about trying to understand the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries outside of the political and professional context of the late 16th/early 17th century professional London playhouses.

Citation

Patterson, Annabel. "Back by Popular Demand: The Two Versions of Henry V." Shakespeare: The Critical Context. Stephen Orgel and Sean Keilen Ed. New York: Garland Publishing. 1999. p. 313 - 346. Print. Dual pagination is given for all works in this volume, but since the table of contents follows the pagination running at the bottom center of each page, this is the pagination that I have followed in my citations.

Notes on "Casting Shakespeare's Plays" - Chapter 4

Q1 of 2 Henry 6 has fewer spoken lines than appear in F, but does not require fewer actors, which contradicts the theory that Q1 is printed from a version cut for touring (for size requirements) (78).

The quarto of 3 Henry 6, like the quarto of 2 Henry 6, is shorter than its appearance in F, but does not require significantly fewer actors to play, and therefore should not be thought of as a version cut for touring (79).

"The casting requirements for F (Richard III) are almost the same as for Q1" (80). The idea of plays cut down so they could more easily tour is one of the center pieces of the new bibliographic concept of these pirated bad quartos, and while Gurr has presented some very good evidence to counter those theories, King sure is helping.

King takes the F stage direction from Midsummer "They sleepe all the Act" to mean the lovers sleep through an onstage musical interlude, but I think it is rather a sign to indicate that they remain on stage, even though they don't say anything. A signal to a reader, or perhaps even an actor, that they are not to go anywhere when they've run out of lines (84).

The quarto text of Henry V also requires a similar number of actors as the Folio text; 20 men and 4 boys in Q, 23 men and 5 boys in F. Even though F contains about twice as many spoken lines as Q, it is therefore unlikely, as Greg suggests, that Q is an adaptation for touring. Taylor's proposition that Q is a reduced cast version (for nine or ten men and two boys) is also inaccurate in light of this evidence (87).

King notes, of Troilus and Cressida, that "the fourteen men required in fifteen principal parts are significantly more than the average of ten men required in principal parts parts for other Shakespeare plays, and this lends support to the argument that the play was written for private performance" (89). But what about the 20 men and 4 boys that the shorter Q of Henry V requires? Why not commentary on that?

Citation
King, T. J. The Casting of Shakespeare's Plays: London actors and their roles, 1590 - 1642. Cambridge: Cambridge UP: 1992. Print.

Notes on "Shakespeare and the New Bibliography" - Chapter 5

Pollard argued that printed texts of Shakespeare's plays, especially the Folio, were closer to his manuscripts than most earlier editors had thought, and that several of these were probably set from his own holograph (65).

"The problem of deciding whether a play was printed from the prompt-book is often difficult and sometimes insoluble (66).

Evidence for Folio texts being set from authorial copy, whether foul or fair papers, derives from the inclusion of several named actors in the speech prefixes who flourished at the time the plays were written, but were no longer in the company by the time the Folio was printed. It is likely that, were these plays set from playhouse prompt-scripts, those names would have been replaced by either characters or other actors (67 - 68). And yet Wilson ignores the possibility that it could be both; as he himself notes that prompt-book annotations usually appear in a different hand and form than the surrounding play-text, and are easily excluded by a compositor so directed (67). Again, Wilson is relying on an early 20th century interpretation of a job that had begun to disappear from the professional stage at the time he originally wrote (his original essay, upon which this book was written, first appeared in 1945).

NB: research the role of the prompter in 20th century theatre. I need to figure out where the prompter would have been known as primarily the task of the previous generation. I'm pretty sure that the job would have been obsolete by the mid-20th century. As Stern and Gurr describe the task, early modern book-keepers didn't necessarily need to have uniform prompt copy, and from my own experience, it is often easier to track an actor by their proper name than it is by the diversity of characters they may play in a single production.

Wilson acknowledges, as Gurr notes, that the prompt-book would be too valuable a commodity to hand over to the printers, as it would contained the authorizing signature of the Master of Revels, which is what allowed the play to be performed anywhere in England. Wilson theorizes that authorial draft, from which the prompt-book would have been set, would make a more logical choice to turn over to the printers (71). A more logical choice, perhaps, but certainly not the only choice; and if it was not uncommon practice for audience members to make transcriptions of plays they heard, it is equally possible that the KM might have hired someone to transcribe the play as it was performed one afternoon. Or else they might have sent over a collection of parts from a company member who no longer needed them because they were memorized. Or maybe the one supplemented the other.

A licensed prompt-copy of the play may have been submitted for license for printing, while a different copy, such as foul papers, submitted to the printer (72).

Wilson talks about "O, o, o, o" after "the rest is silence" as being a notorious idiosyncrasy of Burbage (74).

"In choosing to reprint these plays [in the Folio that were reprinted from earlier quartos] from the handiest instead of from the earliest and best texts, the Folio not inexcusably falls far short of the textual standards of modern scholarship" (77 - 78). Which is a key, here; modern scholarship cares about things that the KM or their printers never would have bothered about.

It is also possible that some of the Folio texts were printed from copy that was based on prompt copy, in whole or in part (79 - 80).

Greg, in his 1910 edition of Merry Wives, concluded that the quarto text was memorially reconstructed from the player who played the Host; this study laid the foundations for further study of the bad quartos (81). Naturally, I want to get my hands on this, as quarto Merry Wives is a cousin text to Merry Devil.

Two other "bad quartos" exist: The Battle of Alcazar, and Orlando Furioso. In the case of the former we have the original plot, and in the latter the actor's part, as a point of comparison, and from this Greg determined that The Battle of Alcazar was a case of "simple abridgment," although Orlando Furioso was "impoverished" by the addition of more comic scenes (82). Quality and causation judgments aside, this is fascinating.

"In 1608 [Thomas] Heywood speaks of some of his plays being 'copied only by the ear', which is ambiguous. In a prologue written c. 1632 and printed in 1637 he mentions 'Stenography' as responsible for the corruption of his If You Know Not Me (1605)" (86).

Even into the eighteenth century, memory played a more significant role in the pirating of live performance than did note taking or actors parts (86 - 87).

If shorthand notes of a reporter were available for use in reconstructing a performed play text, they would have likely been augmented by the memories of one or more witnesses to the theatrical event, however G.I. Duthie conclusively demonstrated that Elizabethan short hand was not up to the task of reconstructing a play text from a performance in Elizabethan Shorthand and the First Quarto of 'King Lear' (88).

The memorial reconstruction of a play text from dictation might account for "bad-verse lineation, light stopping, mishearings, and actors' phrases" (90).

When a dramatist wrote that their play would take two hours to play, they probably meant two hours and not much longer than that. The same can be said when they said "three hours" (91). I don't think the playwrights should be taken so literally as Wilson seems to feel compelled to, especially in light of the article I recently read by Hirrel.

Summary


It seems to me the crucial flaw of the New Bibliography was when the New Bibliographers presumed they knew anything about the theatrical practices of Elizabethan London. Their interpretations of playbooks and other evidence of the playhouse seems based on their own limited experiences of the modern stage, and those are insufficient grounds to serve as the foundation for any argument about how the materials were used. It also seems likely that they committed similar mistakes regarding the literary value, as the players or the reading public of early modern London saw them, of printed plays. Their work with the materials is groundbreaking, and the evidence they have gathered is still extremely useful, but the conclusions that they draw are based on too many suppositions about fields which they knew little.

Notes on "Principles of Emendation in Shakespeare"

"The fact is that there is only one general principle of emendation, which is that emendation is in its essence devoid of principle" (1).

"Emendation is an art," and while there are no general principles of emendation that can guide great editors, there are some basic rules that will help lesser editors (1). Honestly, all of this double talk just doesn't make any sense to me.

Any editor would do well to remember two facts: even careful authors do not always write the most sensible phrases, and sometimes it will be impossible to trace the agency of corruption in a particular text (4).

"When we have satisfied ourselves that an emendation is acceptable, the next question we ought to ask is what it implies with respect to the history and origin of the text" (5).

"The central point at which I am aiming is this: that no emendation can, or ought to be, considered in vacuo, but that criticism must always proceed in relation to what we know, or what we surmise, respecting the history of the text" (6). I had initially paraphrased this in the manner that follows, but F.P. Wilson saw fit to quote this passage on p. 97 of Shakespeare and the New Bibliography, so I have included it in my notes after reading it there.

No single emendation can be made without considering the historical context of the work at hand, and when more than one emendation is made, they should not involve mutually contradictory origin theories (6).

When editing plays that exist in only one version, such as the plays that were first printed in F1, beyond the general suitability to the text, there are only two general guides that an editor has at their disposal: a knowledge of the kinds of errors a compositor is likely to make in reading a text, and of the kinds of errors he is likely to make in setting the text (8). Greg loves his binaries.

In cases where there are two texts from the period, one may be taken as a correction of the other, and where the texts have common errors, it is probable that the error stems from a misreading of authorial manuscript. In this cases, it is helpful to consider what interpretation was placed on this corruption, especially by the actors who probably used it (9).

By the same logic, when a reading is specifically preserved in two extant texts, it may be a sign that it is correct, and should be retained (10). Admittedly, this is one of the reasons that I preserved "the nun will soon at night turn lippit" instead of "tippet." Lippit is a nonsense word and a clear misreading, but it is preserved in all six quartos, and tippet is perfectly sensible, if a little obscure to a modern audience, that has performative implications (i.e. Miliscent wearing a monk's robe as part of her escape). Looking back on it, I made the wrong choice, and so will generally disagree with Greg's logic here.

When considering instances in the Folio where the Folio version was apparently set from an earlier quarto, Greg says "where the texts differ, one possesses vastly greater authority than the other: where they agree, we not only have direct transcriptional witness to what the author wrote, but we know, subject to certain exceptions, that this was what was actually spoken on stage" (14). Again, I find this claim to be dubious.

For those texts in which a "good" quarto corrected a "bad" quarto, and then was used to print the Folio, the bad Romeo and Juliet is better than the good text. Greg sees this as an opportunity for "critical exploration" (21).

Summary


It's kind of hard for me to honestly evaluate W.W. Greg. He certainly makes a great deal of sense at times, but his subscription to the New Bibliography's narrative colors his view of the evidence, but I am encouraged by his ability to see that the bad quarto of Romeo and Juliet, at least, isn't all that bad. I can't help but think there is more science to emendation than Greg lets on, even if it is a science that is particular to a text, or to a set of texts. As each text needs to be regarded on its own terms, the specifics of emendation are specific to the text(s) being edited, however similar governing principles to that process seem to apply.

Citation
Greg, W.W. "Principles of Emendation in Shakespeare." Proceedings of the British Academy. Annual Shakespeare Lecture. Read 23 May 1928. Print.

Notes on "The Craft of Printing and the Publication of Shakespeare's Works - Chapter 4

Venus and Adonis is Shakespeare's first printed work, it was printed in 1593 by Richard Field ad sold by John Harrison. Field entered the poem in the Stationer's register on 18 April 1593. Shakespeare's second printed work was The Rape of Lucrece, also printed by Field and sold by Harrison; first printed in 1594, Lucrece was entered in the Stationer's register by Harrison on 9 May 1594. While there is no evidence that Shakespeare personally oversaw their printing, both are cleanly printed and appear to be set from the author's holograph. This same care and attention was not devoted to the printing of any other of Shakespeare's works during his lifetime (73 - 75).

Williams calls the Pavier quarto arrangement "higgledy-piggldy" (87). Most of his assessment of Shakespeare in print is a standard trope of New Bibliography; there are "bad quartos" which are pirated, "good quartos" that are attempts to correct the work of the author in print, and the Folio. Especially in light of Massai's analysis of the Pavier Quartos, I found Williams' description amusing.

The printers of the First Folio seem to have been playhouse and printshop professionals, but a more 'editorial' hand guided the Second Folio, which makes considered corrections and improvements to the text over F1. The Third and Fourth Folios were printed by men who were more typographically sensitive, the result culminating in the Fourth Folio which, unlike its predecessors, is a "handsome" volume patterned after continental printings, the quality of which outpaced the English (90 - 92 quotation from 90).

"It is true that [Shakespeare] wrote many more lines to his play than could be spoken in a production" (92).

Shakespeare wrote plays "from the joy and agony of writing, not to see them appear printed on pages in a book" (93). Wow. In the same breath that Williams says Shakespeare wrote more lines than would actually be performed, he also says that Shakespeare wrote them because he was a Writer. Here we see the flaw of the New Bibliography in action: the understanding of Shakespeare as a writer in the purely artistic sense. Only a fictional character could be so dedicated to the production of words for the sake of words. Shakespeare was a man of the playhouse, and too prodigious a businessman to waste time writing words that he never expected to be read or performed.

Summary


The New Bibliographers have a rather consistent narrative of the history of William Shakespeare's plays in print, and a view of Shakespeare as a pure author who was interested in writing beautiful words for the sake of beauty. They are also persistent in ignoring or disregarding evidence to the contrary. Williams has clearly fixed himself in that tradition in this last chapter, and despite a book filled with otherwise interesting historical data about the rise of print, comes to a rather blase conclusion.

Citation


Williams, George Walton. The Craft of Printing and the Publication of Shakespeare's Works. Washington: Folger Books. 1985. Print.

Notes on A New Theatre Historicism

It is impossible to place early modern texts in their original contexts because too little information about both is available. Thus, it is impossible to achieve the goals of both New Historicism and early modern performance study (71).

"Almost no play texts survive from Shakespearean time in a form that represents with much precision  what was actually staged" (71).

Given that less than 2% of the licensed copies of plays, or "allowed books," are extant, modern editors who attempt to edit their plays with the goal of presenting the edition that was staged are reaching for an unattainable goal (71 - 72).

"We need to recognize the evidence that even the 'allowed books' were routinely cut in performance to fit the two hours traffic of the stage that the prologue to Romeo and Juliet advertises" (72).

The range of variation between authors and playing companies, and their relations with one another, are too great to allow for a single set of editorial principles to be applicable to all texts of the period (73).

Leah Marcus argues that the quarto text of Merry Wives is distinct in its design from the text available in the Folio, and that the quarto probably represents something more closely resembling the text that was used for performance (74).

The theatrically performed versions of plays of the period made their way to the print shop less regularly than did author's draft copies (74).

"Almost none of the surviving repertory of 167 King's Company plays in print or in manuscript do more than roughly approximate to the words the players spoke on stage, and they say almost nothing about their actions (75).

The Q1 Henry V likely represents a cut version of the play, not an incomplete one, as all the longer speeches have lines missing in the middle sections, so as not to affect cue lines (75). c.f. with Stern's work on this topic.

Allowed books will almost never be found in print because they were one of the company's most valuable assets, and they could not afford to send the book with the Master of the Revels' signature to the printer lest it be lost, damaged, or stolen (76).

"[the allowed book's] peculiar value was that it contained the maximum words that the company was licensed to perform anywhere in the country" (76).

Very often the performance would be a cut version of the allowed book, as cutting was an easy process. The book keeper would hold the book to give players their cues, and would use it to prepare properties. These books were heavily used backstage, and Henry Herbert had to re-license some older plays when the original allowed books had been worn out (76 - 77).

"Any written text produced from the long and fiddly process of preparation and rehearsal will be frozen into a quite unnatural form, and we read it as a fixity only because 400 years of respecting print and its fixity above the transience of the spoken word have habituated us to doing so" (77).

Herbert at least twice charged half of his usual fee for licensing plays when companies wanted to add new material to old plays, which indicates the readiness of playing companies to alter the written text of the play based on their experience performing it (77 - 78).

From the extant manuscript allowed book of The Two Noble Ladies, we can observe that someone (most likely the book-keeper) substituted the names of actors in the company for certain of the supernums in the text of the play, and substituted properties in the company's stock for those called for in the script (84 - 85).

cf Thomson, Leslie. "A Quarto 'Marked for Performance': Evidence of What?" Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England. Vol. 8. 1996. 176 - 210.

Citation

Gurr, Andrew.  "A New Theatre Historicism." From Script to Stage in Early Modern England. Peter Holland and Stephen Orgell Ed. Houndmills. Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. 71 - 88.

Notes on Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor - Chapter 2

While Henry VIII did much to suppress the printing of plays, and Edward and Mary only tightened their control of the printing industries, Elizabeth was more open to both printed and performed dramatic works. Elizabeth imported Italian scholars to her court, especially refugees of the counter-Reformation, who brought with them their evolving editorial sensibilities, which were coming to treat contemporary texts with the same scholastic rigor as their classical counterparts (69 - 70).

Paratextual materials calling attention to editorial practice were common in Italian playbooks. Editors took care to let readers know they had invested care and attention to correcting the mistakes of previous editions, and of identifying the failings of previous editors and translators to provide the reader with the editorial apparatus for the construction of the new, presumably superior edition (71 - 72).

With the increasing popularity of Italian drama at court, English play books started to advertise their own editorial apparati. John Day, in the second edition of Gorboduc, added an address to the reader that went so far as to claim that Norton and Sackville's original play was effectively raped as it was put into print (73 - 73). That is interesting, as it establishes a precedent as early as 1572 for the existence of the sort of piratical print house practices that led to the printing of bad quartos.

John Wolfe may be another source of continental editorial practices being introduced to the London print house. Wolfe, who specialized in printing Italian books (including Machiaveli's The Mandrake), probably traveled to Europe after serving a seven year apprenticeship to John Day in London, and possibly worked with Giunti. Although there is no documentary evidence that proves this beyond a doubt, Wolfe did adopt Giunti's device when he returned to London (75 - 76).

Wolfe's books generally include extensive paratextual materials that specify that the texts have not been interfered with by any editorial hand where the original authors are both still alive and directly involved in publication. By contrast, similar materials specifically advertise the work of an editor in preparing the texts of well-known, deceased authors (77).

Continental imprints on books made them more desirable to consumers, and Wolfe had a tendency to forge these imprints to help move copy, but the way in which he did belies a knowledge of humanist works, and Wolfe's typographical and editorial rigor was comparable to materials printed on the continent (79). Which tends to beg the question: if London book buyers were interested in continental imprints because of their supposed higher quality, how learned could these consumers have been if they were fooled by fictitious place names? Also worth considering, how justified was the London book purchaser in presuming that native works would not have bee subject to such a heightened level of editorial scrutiny? Still, if Wolfe felt the need to forge a continental imprint to make money, it clearly indicates that Londoners of the time were aware of quality editorial work, and actively sought it out in their purchases.

"The Italian plays published by Wolfe seem to have received as much editorial attention as any other f his literary publications" (79 - 80).

Professional writers, scholars, translators, and other men of letters all became familiar with Wolfe's editorial practice of recruiting scholarly assistants to help conduct his work (80).

Richard Jones, a contemporary of Wolfe's, published similar prefatory materials in some of his editions. Especially worthy of note is the address to the reader in Promos and Cassandra, in which he explains to the reader that the author had not perfected a copy of the manuscript for printing, and begs their indulgence if he has committed any errors (83).

Jones, however, was not so diligent in revealing his apparatus with his earlier works as he was with Promos and Cassandra. It is noteworthy that the printing of Promos and Cassandra coincides with the appearance of Wolfe's editions in London, and that this edition marks a turning point in Jones' career as a printer/editor (84).

When Jones later printed Marlowe's Tamburlaine, he would follow the same conventions he used for Promos and Cassandra, however when he printed Wilson's The Three Lords and the Three Ladies of London he did not do so. Massai posits that Marlowe's work was more reminiscent of the great Italian comedies, and thus inspired a more serious editorial treatment than Wilson's more allegorical play (84).

Jones was sporadic in his editorial work, and whereas Wolfe seemed concerned with recovering authorial intention, Jones was more concerned with distancing printed books from the play houses where they originated (87). In his introduction to Tamburlaine, for example, he mentions that he has excised several comic scenes that were well received on the stage, but that he did not deem appropriate for "so honorable and stately a history" (84 - 85). When Jones would later print A Knack to Know a Knave, he would retain the same conventions of setting speech prefixes (left margin) and stage directions (centered) that he used for Pomos and Cassandra, but neglected to include similar prefatory material (87).

Shakespeare used Pomos and Cassandra as a source for Measure for Measure, and would have thus been aware of print house conventions being employed for printing plays, and perhaps most notably to the literary status that the print house was beginning to accord to plays, or at least this play in particular (87).

Analysis

The London reading public of the late 16th century was developing a taste for the textual scholarship that had been imported by continental editions, scholars, and London printers who had traveled the continent. Driven by market demand, other printers were forced to adopt at least the appearance of this editorial rigor in preparing works for print, but the degree to which they did so depended on their perceived quality of the work. A playbook that was perceived to have been written in the classical mode would be accorded the dignity of a more literary preparation than a playbook that was viewed in a lighter regard (which Merry Devil almost certainly was).

While rigorous, even by modern standards, editorial practices were available, they were not universally applied. Let us again return to Henry Ballard's print shop. Arthur Johnson brings him a copy of Merry Devil, Ballard sees immediately that, although it may start in the same mold as a history or tragedy, it is a fairly light hearted comedy. As I once heard Tom Berger described printed plays, a "comic book," and perhaps a literally cut and pasted manuscript at that. How should he treat this work? While modern editorial practice may have been available in 1608, it was not universally applied because it did not need to be. Tamburlaine is a play that some might study for its fine rhetoric, Merry Devil is not. Nor, for that matter, is Merry Wives. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I need to seek out that bad quarto of Merry Wives as a reference point.

This begs another question: if Merry Devil was not worthy of editorial rigor in 1608, is it in 2010? What is the text designed to do? What is the text that serves a production designed to do? What purpose should a new edition serve?

Notes on Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor - Introduction

One of the authors Dr. Menzer recommended I look into when I started this project was Sonia Massai, and in what now feels like the pre-history days of last semester, I recall reading one of her articles on the matter (i.e. before I was taking obsessive compulsive notes. It's true, you never can read enough, but I definitely want to make a dent into Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor  before I go much further. The inside cover claims this to be an exploration of the prehistory of editing, which is right up my alley.

While we might commonly mark Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare as the beginning of editing Shakespeare's plays, and of giving a prominent place to the editor, "editorial manipulation" of the texts had been taking place for nearly a century by the time of Rowe's 1709 edition (1 - 2).

Julie Stone Peters has already explored the interplay between the playhouse and the print shop. The commercial possibilities of offering new texts that were, as commonly advertised on title pages of the period, "newly corrected and amended." It is, however, impossible to say what editorial principles guided these editions. While there is a lack of direct evidence to demonstrate how this process was done, there is some evidence, such as the stationer's preface in the second edition of the Comedies and Tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher (3 - 4).

The process of manuscript annotations to a printed copy for subsequent printing was common enough that the verb "to perfect" came to mean not only "to complete," but also "to make faultless," and was specifically used in this latter context of the preparation of printers copy (5 - 6).

From George Whetstone's dedicatory epistle to Promos and Cassandra we know that texts commonly underwent a stage where they were considered imperfect and in need of correction before being printed. To this Richard Jones, the printer, adds another epistle to the reader explaining that Whetstone didn't supply him with a perfected copy of the work, and begs the indulgence of the reader in forgiving any errors he might have committed in the process. From this, we can see that, should the author have been unavailable, it was preferable that another party should undertake this task of "perfecting" the manuscript (6 - 7).

The final sentence of Heminge and Condell's dedicatory epistle of the First Folio clearly states that they have perfected the copies of the plays (or at least are taking responsibility for that) prior to their printing (7 - 8).

Mosley's collection of the works of Sir John Suckling offers a contrary example, where Mosely states in a preface that he has left The Sad One: A Tragedy un-perfected. Mosely found The Sad One to be incomplete, and decided to print it as he found it rather than supplement Suckling's works with another author unconnected to the original (8 - 9).

"While non-authorial completion or revision of an authoritative, though fragmentary, copy was increasingly regarded as detrimental tampering, non-authorial preparation of dramatic copy for the pres was valued both when it corrected a manuscript draft of a work which the author had failed to perfect and when it corrected imperfections which had found their way into earlier editions then used as printer's copy for later re-issues" (9 - 10).

Whether the original author was able to perfect their manuscript for print, or another agent was required, the perfection of the manuscript for the printer's copy was viewed as an essential part of the printing process (10).

Since the manuscript copies, perfected or otherwise, used to set playbooks for printing do not survive, we must look to the "patterns of textual variations" that occur in plays that were printed more than once, especially when those plays specifically advertise that they are revised or expanded on their title pages (10).

Changes to a text between printings which require some knowledge of that text are the mark of editorial and not print house influence. Print house practices required setters to pay attention to the spelling of words, punctuation, and proper italicization; printers were little concerned with spech prefixes or the use of the proper word within the context of the play (11 - 12).

Similarly, the play house practice of annotating printed texts tended to be towards the end of noting sound cues, cues indicating the use of a prop, a warning to a stage hand, or an indication that the stage would be cleared. They would not have changed/normalized speech prefixes unless doing so was related to a change in the stage action relative to the printed text (13). i.e. early modern prompters annotated scripts in much the same way that modern stage managers do.

The most common written annotations to printed playbooks in the early modern period included the addition or emendation of stage directions, the addition or emendation of speech prefixes, and the correction of nonsensical language in the dialogue. While individual corrections are almost impossible to date precisely, certain letters distinctive in 16th and 17th century secretary hand were no longer in common use by the end of the 18th century (14).

It is noteworthy that manuscript emendations to playbooks by private owners of those books were common, and indicates either a familiarity with the play as performed or with the greater narrative of the text (14 - 21).

Since it is difficult to trace the origins of manuscript emendations to printed playbooks, it is best to think of the individual who make these emendations as "annotating readers." Their emendations tend to demonstrate a familiarity with the text that goes beyond what would commonly be expected of print house practice, but neither their authorial or play house nature can be firmly established (30).

Methods of the New Bibliography devoted discovery the agency of a primary author do not mesh well with the emendations left behind by annotating readers. Since these readers cannot be connected with the authorial hand (or agents of the playhouse or publisher) in any meaningful way, the emendations that annotating readers have left behind will typically be disregarded by modern editors (31).

Modern editors may also discount emendations by annotating readers because they do not fit neatly into the model of removing print house corruptions in the service of illuminating authorial or theatrical intentions (31 - 32).

Many, if not most, stationers chose not to print plays for whatever reason, and it is likely that those who did had some connection with the playing companies. If this is the case, it is more likely than not that they would have had access to authorial manuscript copies of the plays they published (34).

Analysis

Unless I miss my guess, Massai is going to trace the lineage of Nicholas Rowe and those who came after him back to the annotating readers of the early modern era. She admits that she will have little direct evidence to proceed from, but does a fine job of establishing evidence that, some of the purchasers of his printed texts felt the need to correct those texts. The source of their correction is indeterminate; while it may likely be in performance, since we can only very approximately date the annotations, we have no way of knowing if this was a performance given in Shakespeare's lifetime, or if it was at the Globe, Blackfriars, or some private venue. One is also forced to accept the possibility that the source of some of these annotations may have been in the fancy of the annotator, but even if the emendation was routed in performance, we do not have the records necessary to corroborate whether or not the annotator was remembering properly.

Still, the tie between perfected copies being sent to the print house, and the link between stationers and the playhouse is useful. That said, while Arthur Johnson did possess one other King's Men play, he clearly didn't have significant dealings with them, but there exists a connection all the same. Alternatively, the case of the bad quartos is that they derived from pirated manuscripts from an actor in the company, and since the Host character figured prominently into the Merry Wives bad quarto, it has been assumed that this actor was involved in the piracy. If that is true, than we might be seeing something similar happening with Merry Devil since a Host character plays prominently in that play, too.



Maybe Merry Devil is a bad quarto, after all.