The Quarto of 1654: Printer and Compositors
The sole Quarto of Appius and Virginia survives in no
fewer than
five issues, with successive cancels replacing the original title leaf (Greg,
Bibliography, II, 733). The first issue, of which Greg records
two
copies, was printed for Richard Marriot, to whom it had been entered in the
Stationers' Register on 13 May 1654, and is dated 1654, as is the second,
of
which there are eight copies; the third, extant in a unique copy in the
Library
of Congress, is dated 1655; the fourth, of which there are eight copies, is
dated 1659 and was printed for Humphrey Moseley, to whom the rights had
been transferred on 11 June 1659; and the fifth, of which there are four
copies, is as late as 1679. The collation is A1
B-H4 I4
(—I4), the text beginning on B1 and ending on I3.
The printer, hitherto unidentified, was almost certainly Thomas
Maxey
(active 1637-1657), whose name as printer is on the title page of at least
seven of Marriot's publications in the period 1651-1655,[2] including Isaak Walton's
The Complete
Angler (1653, and second edition 1655), Sir Henry Wotton's
Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651, and second edition 1654), and
John
Donne's Essays in Divinity (1651).
There is little about the Appius Quarto that might serve
readily
to identify its printer—only an arrangement of nine unusual fleurons
on the
title page and a double row of small acorn-like ornamental types, of a very
common kind, above the head title on B1. Both these forms of
ornamentation are, however, found several times in Reliquiae
Wottonianae (1654, Wing W 3649) on A3, A5, B1, E2, F7, H1,
and
many other pages; in Edward Sparke's Scintillula Altaris,
printed by
Maxey (1652, Wing S 4807) on A3. A4v, A5v, A6v, A7, B2, C1, and
other
pages; and in Essays in Divinity (1651, Wing D 1861) on
A1, A2,
and K11v; and the more distinctive appears in The Complete
Angler
(1653, Wing W 661) on A5; The Complete Angler (1655,
Wing W
662) on Q11; Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651, Wing W 3648)
on a1,
b1, A1, D1, F4, I5, and P4; and Sir Thomas Overbury's
Observations
upon the Provinces United (1651, Wing O 609), also printed by
Maxey,
on A4.
Moreover, the Appius fleuron is used on A2v of the
Quarto of
Henry Glapthorne's Revenge for Honour, which has a
publishing
history similar to that of Appius, appearing in three issues,
two of
1654 "for Richard Marriot," and a third of 1659 "for Humphrey Moseley"
(Greg, Bibliography, II, 730). In the second issue, surviving
in a
single copy in the Pforzheimer Library, a leaf containing an Epistle
Dedicatory has been inserted after the title. Greg notes: "While there is no
proof that the leaf belongs to the book, there seems no reason to doubt it.
According to the Pforzheimer Catalogue the printer of the leaf was Thomas
Maxey (1647-57), but the printer of the play is not known." Greg does not
say on what basis the Pforzheimer Catalogue assigned the printing of the
second issue's additional leaf to Maxey, but that he was in fact the printer
of
the whole play is strongly suggested by the type ornamentation that the
Quarto has in common with Scintillula
Altaris (1652), The Complete Angler (both 1653 and
1655), and
the other books printed by Maxey. Compare, for example, A2 of
Revenge for Honour with A2, A8, and B1 of the first edition
of
The Complete Angler (1653), and with A2 and B1 of the
second
edition (1655). Or compare the opening A2v-A3 of Revenge for
Honour with the opening 2C1v-2C2 of Scintillula
Altaris. The
habit of dividing a row of ornamental types by colons links Revenge
for
Honour with the books known to have been printed by Maxey. In
Revenge for Honour, as in Appius and
Virginia, only two
leaves per gathering are signed, always in the form 'B', 'B2', without
stops,
and in neither play are lines of verse capitalized. Both Quartos seem to use
the same fount of type, of which twenty lines measure approximately 81-82
mm.[3] Thomas Maxey is, then, the
probable printer of both Revenge for Honour and
Appius and
Virginia.
Analysis of the headlines in the Appius Quarto reveals
that a
single skeleton was used for inner and outer formes of sheets B-E. This
skeleton also machined both formes of G and the outer formes of H and I.
However, a second
skeleton was introduced to machine both formes of F and the inner formes
of
H and I.
[4] Tabulation makes the
sequence
clear:
|
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
| OUTER: |
I |
I |
I |
I |
II |
I |
I |
I |
| INNER: |
I |
I |
I |
I |
II |
I |
II |
II |
This skeleton pattern implies an undisturbed relationship between
composition and presswork over the first four sheets, but suggests that the
first forme of F may have been prepared for the press before the second
forme of E had been released. It would not be surprising to find some
change
in the compositorial pattern in sheet F.
A hint towards differentiation of compositors is given by the spellings
of
those useful test words do and go. On some
pages the
spellings do and go are preferred, on others
doe and
goe. Pages exhibiting a decisive preference for
do and
go are C1, C2, C4v, D4, E1, F2, F3, F4, G2v, G3, G3v,
and I4v; and
for doe and goe B2v, C3v, D1, D1v, E2v, E3,
E3v, E4, and
E4v.[5] When the twelve
do/go
pages are carefully compared with the nine doe/goe pages,
further
differences emerge, and these all prove statistically significant beyond the
one per cent level, when tested by Yates's chi-square.[6] Table 1 presents these results:
Table 1
| 12 do/go pages |
|
9 doe/goe pages |
| (Compositor A) |
(Compositor B) |
|
do/go
|
39 |
do/go
|
1 |
|
doe/goe
|
0 |
doe/goe
|
31 |
|
I'l
|
15 |
I'l
|
0 |
|
I'le
|
1 |
I'le/Ile
|
10 |
|
-ness
|
10 |
-ness
|
0 |
|
-nesse
|
4 |
-nesse
|
8 |
|
-l
|
22 |
-l
|
1 |
|
-ll
|
0 |
-ll
|
22 |
Figures for
-l and
-ll endings exclude
monosyllabic words
(
shall,
will,
well,
still, and so on), of which the
modern spelling predominates throughout, but the
do / go
speller,
whom I have labelled Compositor A, nevertheless uses the
-l
ending
in a monosyllable 9 times in his twelve pages, whereas the
doe /
goe
speller (Compositor B) never uses it. Compositor A's
I'le
spelling
occurs on a page (F4) on which
I'l also appears. Compositor
B's
anomalous single
-l spelling is in the last word of a full line,
and is
outweighed on the page (E2v) by four
-ll endings.
Compositor B's
uncharacteristic
do spelling is also in a full line, and there are
eight
doe / goe spellings on the same page (E3v).
From Table 1 we may safely conclude that at least two compositors
set
the text and that the spellings listed there will serve to distinguish
them.
When the whole text is examined in the light of these key words,
almost
every page affords unequivocal evidence (presented in full in Table 2 at the
end of this article) of one or other compositor's handiwork. The overall
pattern suggests that the doubtful pages in sheet B are probably Compositor
B's, those in F-H probably Compositor A's. The change at F in the
relationship between composition and presswork, tentatively inferred from
the skeleton pattern, is confirmed by Table 2, which shows Compositor A,
who had shared equally with Compositor B the setting of sheets C and D,
and also set the first two pages of sheet E, now taking over as sole
typesetter. Presumably presswork was lagging behind composition, perhaps
because the press was partly occupied with some other job, so that
Compositor A could comfortably keep ahead of the press on his own.
Some confirmation of the proposed compositorial divisions is
provided
by the setting of words immediately following speech prefixes. Compositor
A often fails to set adequate spacing between prefix and text. Compositor
B
is more consistent. There is doubtless subjectivity in my criterion of
"adequacy" here, but on A's thirty-five unquestioned pages I count fifty-six
instances of deficient spacing between prefix and text, whereas B's nineteen
unquestioned pages afford only five. B1, B4, and B4v are all perfect in this
respect, while F1, F2v, G4v, and H3v have two, two, one, and two
examples
of inadequate spacing. So my tentative assignment of the doubtful pages in
sheet B to Compositor B, and of those in sheets F-H to Compositor A
receives some support from this evidence.
Compositor A always sets speech prefixes for Marcus Clodius as
Clod. (36 times), except for one Clo. in a full
line on D4: the
pertinent pages are D2v, D4, D4v, F1, F1v, F2, F2v, F3, G1, G1v, I1,
I2v,
and I3. Compositor B never sets Clod., but employs a great
variety
of other prefixes for Clodius. He begins with two instances of
Marcus.
Cl. on B1v, sets Marcus twice on B2-B2v, changes
on B3v from
Cl. to Clodius. (twice) and M.
Clodius. (3 times),
continuing to use M. Clodius. three times on B4. Then he
follows
one Clodius. on C2 with Clo. twice on C2 and
three times on
C3, reverting to M. Clodius. (twice) and
Clodius. (6 times)
on D2. In E2v-E4v he sets a single Clo. at the top of E3, but
otherwise wavers between Clodius. (15 times) and
Clodi. (5
times). The difference between the two men is striking:
Speech Prefixes for Marcus Clodius
|
Clod.
|
other forms |
| Compositor A: |
36 |
1 |
| Compositor B: |
0 |
48 |
Three tentative attributions are thus further confirmed—B4 to
Compositor
B, and F1 and F2v to Compositor A.
