University of Virginia Library

§14. Phase IV

The latest copies of ToP—those which the title page calls "the third impres-
sion"—comprise the most homogeneous group in the whole publication history.
Of the 27 pages in quires "a" and A-C, 24 have settings, impositions, or vari-ant states that are unique to this printing. 39 The sheets of quire D printed by
Norton for this phase are characterized by state D1r:2a3, whereas his output
for Phase III contains D1r:2a1–2. (The latest state of that page also occurs in
the Newberry copy, one of the five from Phase IIIb discussed in the preceding
section; but we can probably regard this as another instance of an earlier-phase
copy that had to be completed with a quire from the next phase.) No unsophisti-
cated copy of Phase IV contains sheets from earlier printings, if we except Okes'
quire D, which I have argued was likely the product of two separate print runs
that are now indistinguishable.

The single-leaf "Speech to the King and Queenes Maiesties," alluding to
the second performance of 13 February, is bound into four of the nine traceable
copies of Phase IV. Its placement among the sheets would probably have been at
individual binders' discretion. As a sort of dedication, it could logically belong at
the end of the preliminaries after Shirley's original dedication; or, as it referred to
an event later than the first performance documented by the book, it could come
last. The copies I have seen show two in the first location and two in the other
(and Greg reported that his copy had it bound after quire a.) Being a singleton, it
would have been prone to loss, and one does not know whether it was originally
included with the sheets of all Phase-IV copies or whether it was available only
for those sold later. I could not find any of its damaged types elsewhere in the
book, so there is no obvious evidence that it was set soon after the last phase of
printing. In §16, I will give archival evidence that might have a bearing on the
addendum, but from the physical evidence it is not possible to say anything with
greater certainty.