University of Virginia Library

A Proof-Sheet from Nicholas Okes' Printing-Shop
by
John Russell Brown

The first quartos of Shakespeare's King Lear (1608) and John Webster's The White Devil (1612), two works printed by Nicholas Okes in the early years of his career, have received considerable editorial attention in the present century.[1] It is now known that proof-correction during the printing of some of the sheets has resulted in numerous variants between different copies of both these first editions, and in both there seems

to have been some special factor governing such correction; for King Lear the text was set from a particularly difficult manuscript copy[2] and for The White Devil the author appears to have intervened on at least one occasion in such a way as to disturb the regular methods of proof-correction.[3] These facts give particular interest to the discovery of a proof-sheet for a book printed by Okes and dated 1609, for this provides an example of what may be called the normal printer's corrections during the printing of a sheet in this printing-house.

The proof-sheet is found in the Folger Shakespeare Library copy of John Tichborne's A Triple Antidote, against certaine very common Scandals of this time, . . . . (1609). That the manuscript corrections in this copy are indeed proof-corrections is proved by the facts that they occur on the outer forme of signature I and nowhere else in the book, and that they are mostly corrected in another copy of the same book which is in the Boston Public Library.[4] The concern of the corrector with broken or badly inked type makes it almost certain that he was one of Okes' workmen and not the author of the book.

The manuscript corrections in the Folger copy are as follows:

• 1. Sig. I1. many [broken 'a'] —corrected in the margin to 'many'.
• 2. Sig. I1. human —corrected in the margin to 'humane'.
• 3. Sig. I1. power, —followed by a vertical mark, possibly erasing a stop or raised space.
• 4. Sig. I1. power established —corrected in the margin to 'power, established'.
• 5. Sig. I1. through —the defective 'r' underlined and a cross added in the margin.
• 6. Sig. I2v. fame —corrected in the margin to 'fame,'.
• 7. Sig. I3. whereof —the defective 'f' underlined and a cross added in the margin.
• 8. Sig. I3. God —followed by a short vertical mark.
• 9. Sig. I3. fall [broken 'f'] —corrected in the margin to 'fall'.
• 10. Sig. I4v. Bucer —corrected in the margin to 'Bucer,'.

Cropping has probably lost the full correction of 'God' on I3.

The Boston copy shows that these corrections were carried out as follows:

• 1. The defective 'a' was probably replaced, but with a partly defective type.

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• 2. and 3. The 'e' was added to 'human'; a space was mis-adjusted after 'power,' leaving a larger mark than any that could have been covered by the proof-corrector's ink mark; and, to justify the line, a space between two words was reduced and 'State' altered to 'ftate' ['ft' ligatured].
• 4. The comma was added wrongly, giving 'powere, stablished', and in doing so a space was raised at one end of the line and 'as' misplaced above the line of type at the other end.
• 5. Apparently no change was made.
• 6. The comma was added, but the type disturbed to print 'fame' [with defective 'a'].
• 7. The defective 'f' was replaced by another, but still imperfect, type.
• 8. 'God' was changed to 'Gods' with some displacement of type in its vicinity.
• 9. The defective 'f' was replaced.
• 10. The comma was added.

The Boston copy shows a very faint comma on I4v after 'outcasts' (line 8) which is not visible in the Folger copy, but this is almost certainly due to faulty type or inking, and not to proof-correction. There are no certain variants between the two copies in this forme other than those listed above.

It is clear that the proof-corrector was not thorough in marking faulty type (the page reproduced with this article shows several broken or badly inked letters that he missed), nor did he make every correction that a careful reading without reference to the copy could suggest (for example, on I4v both copies read 'gouernors &, Primates'). But, on the other hand, the correction of 'human' to 'humane' shows that he had preferential spellings which he would demand even at the cost of a new justification of the type, and the correction of 'God' to 'Gods' shows that he could occasionally read carefully, and perhaps consult the copy. It should also be noted that as the proof-corrector was rushed or uneven in fulfilling his task, so the workman who followed his instructions did so imperfectly, by displacing type, using defective letters or failing to notice all the correction marks.

Something further may be added about the variants in King Lear and The White Devil. If those in this one forme of The Triple Antidote represent, as we may suppose, a normal treatment in this printing-house, then the belief that the variants in the other two works represent exceptional treatment is, by their dissimilarities, further strengthened. Moreover the fact that Okes' corrector was concerned with merely preferential changes and with purely typographical improvements in a book published in 1609, lends some support to Professor Fredson Bowers' contention that Okes was the sort of printer who was likely to do his 'conscientious best to produce the best text he could' from the 'miserable' manuscript copy for Lear in 1608.[5] The typographical improvements to The Triple Antidote also imply

that there are probably more variants in both the other works than have been traced by human eyes alone, and that the full extent of their proof-correction during the printing of certain sheets will only be revealed by using an optical device such as that which Dr. C. Hinman is using on the first folio of Shakespeare.[6] To search for such typographical variants would not be an idle task; if they exist they would enable us to claim that Okes was at least concerned with the appearance of his printed page in King Lear, and they might help to determine which, in one or two doubtful formes, were the first states and which the 'corrected' ones.

Notes