University of Virginia Library

Read before the English Institute on September 9, 1949.

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XXXVI (1937), 151-67.

In this connection one must always recall W. W. Greg's searching monograph on Orlando Furioso and The Battle of Alcazar.

E. E. Willoughby, The Printing of the First Folio of Shakespeare (1932); C. J. K. Hinman, "Principles Governing the Use of Variant Spellings as Evidence of Alternate Setting by Two Compositors," The Library, 4th ser., XXI (1940), 78-94; see also P. Williams, "The Compositor of the Pied-Bull Lear," Papers Bibl. Soc. Univ. Virginia, I (1948), 61-68.

Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 153-67.

For a number of references, see J. G. McManaway's footnote in Standards of Bibliographical Description (1949), pp. 88-89. See also The Library, 4th ser., XIX (1938), 315-38; 5th ser., II (1947), 20-44; 5th ser., III (1948), 124-137; Papers Bibl. Soc. America, XLII (1948), 143-48; XLIII (1949), 191-95.

J. Carter and G. Pollard, An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets (1934); A. T. Hazen, A Bibliography of the Strawberry Hill Press (1942); A. H. Stevenson, "New Uses of Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence," Papers Bibl. Soc. Univ. Virginia, I (1948), 151-82.

D. F. Bond, "The First Printing of the Spectator," Modern Philology, XLVII (1950), 174-77.

W. E. Knotts, "Press Numbers as a Bibliographical Tool: A Study of Gay's The Beggars' Opera, 1728," Harvard Library Bulletin, III (1949), 198-212. See also, P. Gaskell, "Eighteenth-century Press Numbers: Their Use and Usefulness," The Library, 5th ser., IV (1950), 249-61.

"Observations on the Incidence and Interpretation of Press Figures" in the present volume.

"Bibliography—An Apologia," op. cit., pp. 121 ff.

"Principles of Emendation in Shakespeare," Proceedings of the British Academy, XIV (1928), 154-55.

Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare (1939), P. 18.

The Library, 4th ser., XIII (1933), 395-98; 5th ser., I (1946), 67-69; II (1947), 64; and finally "The Supposed Cancel in Southerne's Disappointment," forthcoming in The Library, vol. V (1950).

"The Early Editions and Issues of The Monk," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 3-24.

P. Williams, loc. cit.; see also Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 164.

For a detailed consideration of this passage, see G. W. Williams, "A Note on King Lear, III. ii.1-3," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 175-82.

W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, I (1939), no. 277.

Papers Bibl. Soc. America, XLII (1948), 146-48.

J. S. Steck, "Dryden's Indian Emperour: The Early Editions and their Relation to the Text," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 147.

P. Williams, "Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: The Relationship of Quarto and Folio" in this present volume.

C. J. K. Hinman, "The 'Copy' for the Second Quarto of Othello," Joseph Quincy Adams: Memorial Studies (1948), pp. 373-89.

"The First Edition of Dryden's Wild Gallant, 1669," The Library, 5th ser., V (1950), 51-54.

J. M. Osborn, "Macdonald's Bibliography of Dryden," Modern Philology, XXXIX (1941), 83-85.

The reverse seemed, and still seems to me, almost incredible. With A. the reprint, both compositors of A. (for two compositors can be readily established) agreed in treating the name as an abbreviation and in substituting the abbreviating period for other punctuation found in B., their copy, perhaps rigidly following the single hint of the initial abbreviation of the name in B.

One identifiable compositor used only one skeleton to impose both formes of his sheet; the other, seemingly the quicker workman, used two.

The full argument is provided in the article mentioned above in fn. 22, but no bibliographer will need the details. If B. were set from A., we should have to believe that in these five corrected formes in B. the proof-reader made only changes in minutiae which helped to bring the reprint into conformity with its copy, and no other alterations. Moreover, an error in the uncorrected state of one forme in B. could under no circumstances have originated in a misreading of A.

Davenport's theory of editing and its contradictory results are touched on in my "Current Theories of Copy-Text, with an Illustration from Dryden," Modern Philology, August, 1950.

Apparently this unbibliographical view is held by Richard Flatter, Shakespeare's Producing Hand (1948), and the error succeeds very thoroughly in turning his textual criticism into absurdity. For an analysis of his position, see my review in Modern Philology, August, 1950.