 | |  |
Notes
It is a pleasure to record my thanks to Mr. Lionel Robinson for putting me in touch with the owner, who had found the book in a barrow in front of an obscure bookshop.
For an historical survey of the facts hitherto known to bibliographers and scholars, and of their hypotheses, see Richard Beale Davis, "Early Editions of George Sandys's 'Ovid': The Circumstances of Production," The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, XXXV (1941), 255-76.
A comparison of this engraving with photostats from the University of Chicago Library and Harvard University Library indicates that Delaram copied in reverse the unsigned engraving which serves as the general title of a duodecimo edition published in Amsterdam in 1619 by Guilielmus Ianssonius with the title, Pub: Ovidii Nasonis Opera (another copy is credited to Mills College and a fourth to the Bibliothèque Nationale). The work also appears in a 1624 edition (cf. copies credited to the American Antiquarian Society and to the Bibliothèque Nationale), but Dr. Brigham writes me that the copy in the library of the American Antiquarian Society is not a Jansson publication. The title-page of this edition, which has no engraved general title, reads as follows: "Publii Ovidii Nasonis Operum Tomus I. quo continentur Heroidum Epistola. Amorum Libri III. De arte Amandi Libri tres. De Remedio Amoris Libri II. Et alia, qua aversa pagella indicat. [cut of 2 globes] Amsterdami Apud Guilielmum Caesium Anno MDCXXiiii." The appearance of the name Caesium suggests that the copy listed in the catalogue of the Bibl. Nat. as by "G. Janss. Caesium" may be inaccurately described. In 1629 the Jansson edition was reprinted with a different title, Pub: Ovidii Nas: Opera. Daniel Heinsius textum recensuit, by Ioannes Ianssonus (I have used a photostat of the title-page of the Harvard copy; other copies of this edition are in the Boston Public Library, the Washington and Lee University Library, the British Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale). This 1629 edition has an engraved title-page, unsigned, that is closely copied from that of 1619. According to the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale, later editions were published by J. Jansson in 1634 and 1647 and by J. Blaeu in 1649. I am indebted to Dr. F. T. Bowers for directing my attention to the Dutch engraving and to F. C. Francis, Esq., Mr. William A. Jackson, Dr. Clarence S. Brigham, and Mr. P. G. Morrison for assistance in securing photostats and collecting other information about the Jansson editions.
It has been hinted that the entry in Censura Literaria is a fabrication of the sort frequently attributed to John Payne Collier—cf. Davis, op. cit., pp. 261-62.
Quoted from the bibliographical note by my colleague, Dr. Giles E. Dawson, Curator of Books and Manuscripts, which is inserted at the end of the volume. Similar signed notes are placed in every old book which is rebound at the Folger. The old calf cover is mounted inside the rear cover.
If the frontispiece was printed on leaf F12 which was then detached and prefixed to the book, its loss would be readily accounted for.
Upon his return from Virginia in 1626, Sandys published in a small folio his translation of all fifteen books—see below. See further Davis, op. cit., and also his "America in George Sandys' 'Ovid'," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Ser., IV (1947), 297-304.
Readers may wish to compare this 1621 version with the translation that appears at the end of the folio of 1626: And now the Work is ended, which, Ioue's rage, Nor Fire, nor Sword shall raze, nor eating Age. Come when it will my deaths vncertain howre; Which onely of my body hath a powre: Yet shall my better Part transcend the skie; And my immortall name shall neuer die. For, where-so-ere the Roman Eagles spread Their conquering wings, I shall of all be read: And, if we Prophets truly can diuine, I, in my liuing Fame, shall euer shine.
Arber's reprint, iv, 53. (If Haslewood had had access to the Stationers' Registers, he might have guessed that the first edition was almost certainly dated 1621.) This is the first entry of Sandys's translation. The compilers of the S.T.C. err, as pointed out by Russell H. Barker, T.L.S., 27 Sept. 1934, p. 655, and again by R. B. Davis, "Early Editions," p. 259, note 14, in identifying Sandys's work with the one entered to Jonas Man on 23 February 1617/18. The earlier book, "Ouids metamorphosis gramaticallie translated by John Bringsley" is in fact S.T.C. 18963, of which two copies (British Museum and Folger) are extant. Printed by Humphrey Lownes for Thomas Man in 1618, it is a textbook translation of Metamorphoses, Bk. I, by the celebrated teacher and Puritan divine, John Brinsley. Davis, loc. cit., mistakenly credits the entry of 23 Feb. 1617/18 to "master Lownes"; instead the entry was to Jonas Man "vnder the handes of Master Lownes senior warden."
Until a copy of the first edition of 1621 is discovered, it cannot be known whether the words "edit:2d." were added to the plate at the time the book was reprinted, or even whether the first edition had an engraved title. But certain minor differences in the formation of the letters suggest the possibility that "edit:2d." is an addition. If so, the insertion did not crowd the adjacent lines unpleasantly, but it should be noted that the absence of "edit:2d." would not spoil the appearance of the page.
See note 8 above for detailed comparison. I wish to record my indebtedness to my colleague, Dr. E. E. Willoughby, for several suggestions and to my son, James G. McManaway, Jr., for valuable assistance.
Cf. 1621, p. 20, line 27: To streams, & gentle Nymphs that streams frequet. and 1626, p. 15, line 32: To streams, and gentle Nymphs that streams frequent.
Cf. 1621, p. 8, line 10: Nor rhine, for Thee, lesse thought, Augustus, tooke, with 1626, p. 6, line 13: Nor thine, for Thee, less thought, Augustus, tooke,
Cf. 1621, p. 9, line 4: An other part on hissing Embers broyles. with 1626, p. 6, line 39: An other patt on hissing Embers broyles;
Cf. 1621, p. 40, l. 17: Nor lesse the Heliades lament; who shead with 1626, p. 30, l. 19. Nor lesse th' Heliades lament; who shead or 1621, p. 67, l. 10: To his Browe th' antlers of long-liuing Harts: with 1626, p. 50, l. 20: T' his Browe th' antlers of long-liuing Harts:
It is possible that 1626 was set from a copy of the lost first edition. If so, the printer of the second edition must have worked with remarkable accuracy, for the close correspondence observable between the editions of 1621 and 1626 is rarely found in two independent printings of a copy text.
The fact that one of the publishers, Lownes, to whom the first edition of 1621 was entered was a warden of the Company lends additional weight to my belief that the 1621 venture was not piratical, as has been more than once suggested.
A typographical error in D.N.B. causes Sir Sidney Lee to seem to date this grant 1621, to the confusion of scholarship.
Noted by Alexander Brown, Genesis of the U. S. (1840), II, 994; Davis cites the edition of 1880.
For a preliminary discussion of this and other interesting points of copyright practice, see Giles E. Dawson, "The Copyright of Shakespeare's Dramatic Works," in Studies in Honor of A. H. R. Fairchild, ed. C. T. Prouty, The University of Missouri Studies xxxi (1946), 12-14. The subject is treated at greater length in his forthcoming essay, "Copyright of Plays in the Early Seventeenth Century," in The English Institute Annual, 1947 (Columbia University Press).
It is possible, of course, that Young acquired these rights prior to Sandys's return to London in 1626 and that some arrangement should have been made with him instead of with Lownes.
See Davis, "Early Editions," pp. 270-71, for this text and an account of later troubles that beset Sandys.
Professor Davis has demonstrated that although Books vi-xv were translated on the voyage to America or while Sandys was in residence in Virginia, the first explicit references to the American scene occur in the commentary of the edition of 1632—cf. his "America in George Sandys' 'Ovid'," cited above.
| | |