University of Virginia Library

Thomas Satchell, "The Spelling of the First Folio," Times Literary Supplement (June 3, 1920), p. 352.

E. E. Willoughby, The Printing of the First Folio of Shakespeare (1932), pp. 56 ff.

Charlton Hinman, "Principles Governing the use of variant Spellings as Evidence of Alternate Setting by Two compositors," The Library, 4th ser., XXI (1940-41), 78-94.

Philip Williams, "The compositor of the 'Pied Bull' Lear," Studies in Bibliography, I (1948), 61-68; I. B. Cauthen, Jr., "Compositor Determination in the First Folio King Lear," Studies in Bibliography, v (1952) 73-80; Philip Williams, "Two Problems in the Folio Text of King Lear," Shakespeare Quarterly, IV (1953), 451-460. In the latter article, Mr. Williams makes use of a further test based on comparative centering of stage directions; attempts to apply this method to the Peele quarto have proved fruitless.

Fredson Bowers, "Bibliographical Evidence from the Printer's Measure," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 153-167; application of Professor Bowers's test to the Peele quarto has disclosed no significant evidence.

Tabulated spellings include two occurrences of ago.

Tabulated spellings include two occurrences of ado.

Words in this group admitted as evidence are: all, befall, befell, call, fill, fall, farewell, fulfill, hall, Nell shall, skill, still, tell, till, 'twill, until, well, will, withall. Excluded as invariant are: bell, dwell, gall, full, Hell, ill, knell, lull, quell, rebell, sell, small, spill, swell, tall, trull, wall.

Words admitted as evidence are: astray away, day, display, gay, hay, highway, holiday, lay, may, nay, pay, play, pray, repay, say, stay, way. Some of these are actually invariant, but they are compounds of words that appear as variants (highway, holiday). Excluded as invariant are: array, aye, bay, bewray, clay, ray, slay, sway, convey (spelled convaie), and trey (spelled traie).

Eye(s) occurs eight times: A2, A2v, A3, B2v, C2v, C4, C4v, D4. Eie(s) occurs eleven times: E2 (twice), F1v, F3, G1, L1 (twice), L1v, L2v, L3, L3v.

Neere occurs five times: B3, B4 (neere), C2, D3v, D4v. Neare occurs eight times: E2, E4v, F4v, G2, I4, K4 (neare and nearer), K4v (nearelie). On E2v neare stands for ne'er. I am indebted to Miss Alice Walker for calling these spellings to my attention.

One set appears in outer AB, inner and outer C, inner D, and outer E-L; the other in inner AB, outer D, and inner E-L. Some readers may be interested in what is evidently one of the comparatively rare appearances of a "bite." When the printer cut out the hole in the paper or parchment for the frisket, he sometimes failed to get it quite accurate, or perhaps it later moved slightly out of register. In either case, the intervention of the frisket between type and paper prevented the printing of one or more letters, resulting in a "bite" (see R. B. McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography p. 47). At the top of C4 in the 1599 quarto of Edward I, the Huntington and British Museum (162.d.51) copies have the speech ascription Maris; other copies examined have aris with what appears to be the very tip of the upper right corner of the M barely visible.