University of Virginia Library

The Early Editions and Issues of The Monk, with a Bibliography
by
William B. Todd

UNTIL 1935 THE INVOLVED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Matthew Lewis's The Monk received only cursory attention. Then, as if to redress this lapse, a sudden flurry of notes offered various representations, each contributing a little to an understanding of the problem, more to a realization of its complexity.[1] Eventually, however, Mr. Frederick Coykendall's "A Note on 'The Monk'"[2] brought this phase of the discussion to an end by an account that was not subsequently questioned by those concerned. Yet it seems advisable to reopen the case of The Monk on the basis of a variety of evidence, some of it new, but much of it previously overlooked or in need of reinterpretation.

From 1935 until now the status of The Monk has rested on these several compromises: (1) Contrary to the report in the Life of Lewis, in Lowndes, and elsewhere, no edition was printed in 1795; (2) notwithstanding conflicting statements in booksellers' catalogues, neither the second nor the fifth edition was the first to be expurgated, but rather the fourth; (3) for

some reason there were two distinct "issues"[3] of the first edition, the one completely reset from the other; and (4) these "issues" are not of a certain order but the reverse of that order.

Examination may well begin with a review of the various opinions concerning the two "issues" of the first edition. Several months before Mr. Coykendall made known his own conclusions, Mr. Philip Brooks observed that, while the "1796" (i.e. 1818) Waterford edition was recognized as falsely dated, it was not generally known that there were two legitimate 1796 London issues, the one published in March, and the other "with certain verbal changes, mere corrections of misprints" in April of that year.[4] Extending this discussion, Mr. Louis Peck remarked that there was editorial revision as well, particularly in the last several pages of the novel. The concluding passage in the first issue, it was noted, gave a protracted description of Ambrosio's death agonies; whereas in the second this passage was deleted and replaced with another reading "Haughty Lady . . . ." For Mr. Coykendall this latter analysis was misleading: the misprints, he added, are to be found in the Haughty Lady rather than in the Ambrosio issue. Thus, he concluded, the Haughty Lady version was the first of the two.

The two issues in this order, Mr. Coykendall continued, are indicated by certain entries in the Monthly Magazine, which for March, 1796, lists The Monk as published at 9 shillings, but for April quotes the price as 10s. 6d.[5] The difference in price should be taken as signifying the difference between the Haughty Lady issue and the one that was later corrected. From this follows the hypothesis that when the one was recognized as having errors, it was at once discounted, and superseded in the next month by another sold at full price. To confirm this hypothesis we are given a list of misprints selected as peculiar to the first

issue; but we are not given what is also required, a collation of early editions to demonstrate the uniqueness of the peculiarity. When such a collation is actually made we find, on the contrary, that the peculiarity does not exist. Cited as "misprints,"[6] for instance, are the readings "no mean" and "frequently"—both in the so-called first, or Haughty Lady issue, but also in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions. Similarly the word "feelings" is also found in the 2nd and 3rd editions. It would seem, therefore, that the corresponding words—"some", "occasionally", and "failings"—are actually the original rather than the revised readings; and as these occur only in the issue designated as the second[7] there is strong evidence for reversing the order and considering this as the first. If so ordered, the first or Ambrosio issue presents one set of readings, all others another. Moreover, such a sequence as I suggest permits a very simple explanation for what is so involved in Mr. Coykendall's account of the final passage in the novel: the first issue would carry the description of Ambrosio's sufferings, all later ones the Haughty Lady paragraph.

Also considered to be of some significance, as we have noted, is the apparent relationship between the "misprinted" Haughty Lady issue and the 9 shilling quotation in the March number of the Monthly Magazine. This equation, of course, assumes the accuracy of the discounted quotation, an assumption that is, unfortunately, invalid. Against this single reference to 9 shillings in the Magazine can be opposed twelve to 10s. 6d. for the

initial price: the Edinburgh Magazine's list of books published in March, 1796,[8] and the entries in the Oracle for March 12, the Morning Herald for March 12, 14, 16, the Sun for March 11, 14, and April 19,[9] the Times for April 4,[10] and the Morning Chronicle for April 16, 18, and 23. All of these contradict the price quoted in the Monthly Magazine, and none, it should be observed, marks any chronological distinction between issues. Moreover, an entry as yet unmentioned indicates the probable cause of what is undoubtedly an error in the Magazine. Shortly before the date of publication, when all the papers quoted the price as 10s. 6d., the Morning Herald (March 9) announced that the price would be 9s. Here then is the likely source of an error twice made, and twice corrected at the insistence of the publisher, who had no intention of offering the book at a discount. On the evidence of the price quoted in the Morning Herald for March 9, immediately corrected—it should be observed—in the March 12 number, the Magazine entries almost certainly do not refer to two separate issues, nor do they indicate—if there were two—that one has precedence over the other. Hence, from the first, uncorrected entry, the sole reference on which so much of Mr. Coykendall's argument depends, no conclusions can be drawn.

Another piece of evidence which has been taken as substantiating the sequence is that the March, Haughty Lady issue of The Monk carries on the verso of page 315, third volume, an advertisement for two books, whereas in the April, Ambrosio issue this page is blank. One thing only may be said of advertisements:

if they refer to books published before a first issue they may be cited in that issue; but if they refer to books published at a later date, then, in ordinary circumstances, no issue can represent them except one coincident with or subsequent to the date of their publication. When were these books in print? Investigation discloses that the two works cited in the advertisement, Henry Somerville and The History of Inventions and Discoveries, were published not in March, 1796, nor in April, 1796, nor even in the year 1796, but in April, 1797.[11] Thus the esteemed "first issue" is not the earliest issue of the first edition, nor—as we shall see—of the second, nor of the third, but something else of considerably less bibliographical interest. Authorities on The Monk may accordingly dismiss all talk of two early reset issues in any sequence and present as the true first-edition sheets those without advertisements, and without the Haughty Lady passage.

Before proceeding with the issues of this legitimate first edition I may be allowed a remark in retrospect. Had the various commentators carefully examined the title-leaves for the three volumes of the supposed "first issue," they would have noted evidence which would have affected their arguments. These leaves are cancels,[12] of lighter paper than the text, sometimes bearing the watermark date 1794,[13] and—in every copy examined—carrying vertical chainlines, an obvious sign of

cancellans in an edition of duodecimo format. Since these are not the original titles, therefore, it follows that 1796, although certainly the date to be assigned to the issue, is not necessarily the date inherent to the original sheets of the edition.

The comment just made applies, I now suggest, to the legitimate first published issue as well. Here again, and again as bibliographers have failed to note, the title-leaves for all copies I have seen are cancels, this time of the horizontal-line variety. In view of this discovery, is it unreasonable to infer that the 1796 imprint is likewise assigned and represents, for this issue, the alteration of a 1795 date that originally appeared? The evidence against an original date of 1795 admittedly appears to be so overwhelming that the earlier tradition for it is now generally ignored. At one time Lowndes was thought to have been the first to make the ascription, but in 1935 Mr. Brooks pointed to the Life of Lewis as the source,[14] followed by Mr. Coykendall, who observed that an unusual phrase in the Life—"published in the summer of 1795"—is later quoted verbatim by Lowndes and Allibone.[15] This attempt to derive the Lowndes statement concerning a 1795 edition from the passage in the Life cannot be sustained since Lowndes first appeared in 1834 and the Life was not published until 1839.[16] The fact is that both the actual Lowndes ascription to 1795 and the specific statement in the Life had been anticipated by Watt.[17]

Indeed, as one moves toward the author and away from the guesswork present in recent discussion, all attempts to explain this 1795 date as an error lead only to its validation. Besides

the testimony of Watt and Lowndes, both reputable bibliographers, there is earlier confirmation in the numerous obituaries of Lewis,[18] all of which not only concur in 1795 as the original date for The Monk, but on occasion emphasize the date by reference to events of "the following year" which we know to have taken place in 1796.[19] These accounts too, of course, as they are confused on other details, may also err in this; but if so, definite proof should be offered.

Conclusive evidence, perhaps the only evidence, will reside in the original title-leaves to the first edition, and these have yet to be recovered.[20] Nevertheless, the available evidence offers a very powerful case. Confirming the 1795 date mentioned in the obituary reports are other accounts more approximate to the work itself. In September, 1794, Lewis, then at the Hague, wrote his mother that The Monk had been completed. The following month he sent her verses from the novel[21] and added to the Preface what may be regarded as an explicit, the dateline "Oct. 28th, 1794." By December, at the latest, he was back in London looking for a publisher, and found one in Joseph Bell, who printed the work on paper dated 1794. The reiteration of the date, twice by the author in letters, once in the Preface, and throughout in the watermark is certainly evidence of a sort for 1794 as the year of publication. But obviously, the time-interval is cut rather fine, and there is no more reason for inferring from these indications that everything happened within several weeks than there is for assuming, without any evidence, that nothing whatever happened for sixteen months. As a compromise, therefore, I propose that in the absence of proof either for 1794 or for 1796 we return to the 1795 tradition, and agree

that while a few pre-publication copies were probably distributed in that year—enough at least to establish the report—the actual first published issue was withheld for some reason until March, 1796, when it officially appeared with new title-leaves.[22]

Thus far the results of our investigation have led, quite unintentionally, to a denial of what everyone has accepted and a reinstatement of what everyone has denied. We now approach problems which have not previously been treated. Having reduced the number of known first-edition issues from two to one, we come upon what seems to be a reissue of the first edition under false pretenses. A unique copy of this issue in the Sadleir-Black Collection at the University of Virginia has the same sheets throughout and the same cancellans title-leaves in volumes 2 and 3 as the first issue of the first edition, but the title-leaf for volume I has again been cancelled and replaced with another reading "The Second Edition." The new cancellans, however, was not taken from the legitimate second edition, for among other differences the author's name is still unrecorded. Normally we should expect this previously unrecorded issue to represent a publisher's stratagem for stimulating the sale of a slow-moving book and thus assign its publication as sometime before October, 1796, the month in which the authentic second

appeared.[23] Nonetheless we should pause before making this hypothesis to remind ourselves that any inference regarding this novel may be distrusted, and consider another possibility.

From the moment The Monk was deposited at the bookstalls its reception by the critics undoubtedly prompted a demand which never diminished. Four London editions as well as a Dublin edition appeared within two years, and the imitations were legion. Within the first half year, then, there could hardly have been any need for pushing sales. In fact, only several months at the most could have elapsed before Lewis, realizing the necessity for another printing, set to work correcting and revising the readings to be introduced in the second edition. Now if, as I suggest, the exhaustion of the original supply was foreseen, and if the authentic second edition was published just before the supply ran out, then Bell may have been left with a few copies of the original issue, deemed imperfect by the author, and hence of no interest to a public clamoring for the latest version. Moreover, there is some reason to believe that a few copies were literally as well as textually imperfect. In the Virginia copy, at any rate, six gatherings are missing (vol. II, sigs. H-N), the consequence, perhaps, of a miscalculation when the sheets were counted out at the time of printing. Such a defection, so accounted for, would in itself constitute sufficient reason for keeping these on the shelf until such time as no copies except these were available for sale.

The occasion facilitating the disposal of these remainders occurred, I suggest, six months after the second edition had been published. On the 15th of March, 1797, a ballet adapted from the subplot of The Monk and entitled Raymond and Agnes was performed at Covent Garden. On that very day Bell made a curious announcement:

The report of the second edition being out of print gains some credence from Bell's effort to deny it; just as his advice that another edition was "some months" hence is belied by the appearance of the third edition within five weeks. What was being offered, I believe, was the imperfect and spurious "second," brought forth not to create a demand, but to meet one beyond expectation. In passing, let us not forget the first volume title-leaves excised, or laid aside, to make way for this "second edition"; they will reappear in rather strange circumstances.

Concerning the true second edition little need be said since it is the only one of the early printings that seems to have retained its integrity. Issued in October, 1796, it includes on the title-pages for the first time the name of the author, proudly designated as "M. G. Lewis, Esq. M. P.",[25] and in the text a number of revisions retained thereafter, notably the insertion in one of the poems of a stanza inadvertently omitted before,[26] the suppression of the passage describing Ambrosio's seven days of suffering, and the substitution of another beginning "Haughty Lady . . . ." Had Lewis decided to remain anonymous at this time the bibliographical history of his novel would never have resembled the incredible story that now unfolds. But so enamored was he of the recently bestowed title "Member of Parliament" that he could not resist divulging his position as

well as his name. The news sent every mouth agape. Here, to the horror of all, was the spectacle of a man elected to office that he might preserve morality in the realm, and acknowledging as his a work apparently designed to corrupt all morals.

The criticism following this disclosure was for awhile complacently disregarded and, as we might expect, served only to speed the publication of a third edition to meet the mounting demand for copies.[27] Three months and a day after this edition appeared, however, there sounded a blast which could not be ignored either by Lewis or by the authorities in a position to act against him. This was The Pursuits of Literature, by Thomas James Mathias,[28] a work to which Coleridge alludes as one of "the most vapid satires," valuable only for its notes on contemporary writers.[29] Its value to Coleridge is its value to us, for in the notes to the fourth part, notes added and expanded, revised and rearranged with each succeeding edition, we find a running commentary on Lewis and his work.

Since The Pursuits represents, therefore, an ideal vantage point for witnessing the later history of The Monk, I refer to certain pertinent remarks. In an introduction to the fourth part Mathias pauses before this novel as something

After denouncing the legislators for failing to act against a member of their own house, he affirms that Lewis is at any rate liable before the "tribunal of public opinion" where he may "be made ashamed, or alarmed, or convicted." "Before that tribunal," he continues, "and to the law of reputation, and every binding and powerful sanction by which that law is enforced, is Mr. Lewis this day called to answer."[31] The idea that the author might be liable as well before other and more effective tribunals seems to have occurred to Mathias at this juncture, for he then cites several paragraphs from the seventh chapter of the novel as blasphemy "actionable at Common Law",[32] and gives a list of precedent convictions for similar offenses, those involving Curll, Cleland, Woolston, and Paine.

Now unquestionably Lewis was aware, to his discomfort, that the Proclamation Society was at that very time proceeding against Paine's publisher, one Thomas Williams;[33] hence the coupling of his name with the author of The Age of Reason and the insistence that the one writer was no less guilty than the other may have prompted Lewis to consider a way out of his difficulties. If he was uncertain as to what he might do, Mathias was ready with a suggestion. "The publication of this novel by a Member of Parliament is in itself so serious an offence to the public, that I know not how the author can repair this breach of public decency, but by suppressing it himself." To this note he subtended another: "Or Mr. Lewis might omit the indecent and blasphemous passages in another edition; there is neither genius nor wit in them, and the work as a composition would receive great advantage. I wish he may at least take this advice."[34]

It remains to be determined whether Lewis followed these

recommendations of his own volition, or upon compulsion, or not at all. Certainly Mathias's attack could not have gone unnoticed by the vigilantes appointed to enforce the King's proclamation against vice, and as there is some contemporary talk of a court action, it is plausible that they anticipated any move Lewis might have considered by securing a legal decision against him. The scattered gossip gleaned from a vague reference in the Life [35] and more specific comment in the obituaries[36] suggests that both Lewis and Bell, his publisher, were indicted by the Court of King's Bench, probably at the instigation of the Proclamation Society, then headed by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London,[37] and that a decree nisi was obtained against them, requiring the publisher to recall all copies of the third edition and the author to prepare another edition properly expurgated. By November, 1797, word of this decree must have come to Mathias, for in a note dated that month and added to the fifth edition of The Pursuits he implies that his earlier remarks are no longer applicable, but are retained for the record.[38] Unless there was court action somewhat as I have described it, Mathias would have had no knowledge at this time of Lewis's enforced resolve to make amends, and Bell would have had no reason for so effectively recalling copies of the third edition that only one can be found today.

If we postulate that all but a few copies of the third edition were suppressed, then we will have little difficulty in accounting for their ultimate disposition. Was there any way a publisher could sell perhaps a thousand copies, thus realizing with a profit his original investment, and yet keep within the letter of the law? There was a way, and the resourceful Bell was not one to overlook it. One can imagine that his inspiration was induced by the chance discovery of some leaves stowed away on a warehouse shelf—the cancellans title-pages to volume one of the first issue, first edition, removed, we will remember, eight months before when he passed that edition off as the second. If he could make the first a second, he reasoned, why not make the third a first? What a simple device for circumventing an injunction applicable only to the third edition! On reconsideration he may have had a qualm about such an unethical and in a sense unlawful procedure; but if so, it was only momentary, and passed with the thought that unless he could sell these copies now he could sell the public nothing for some months to come. So resolved, he excised the three title-pages of the third edition, affixed to volume one of each set the old pages he had on hand, and as a matter of economy, or negligence, allowed the book to be sold without titles for the second and third volumes. One of these sets Lewis secured as a text for revision, and this unique copy, with his MS notations, is now at the British Museum, catalogued, I might add, as the first edition with corrections for the second, though actually, as we see, the second issue of the third edition with corrections for the fourth.[39]

Encouraged by the success of this covert venture, Bell now considered the problem of moving the rest of his contraband. Since the number of copies he had sophisticated in the manner described was small, corresponding, of course, exactly to the number of copies from which the first edition title-page had been removed, he prepared to run off new titles for the remainder of his stock. But instead of using one of those from the first edition as a model for the new setting, doubtless because he had just disposed of these, he reverted to the form of the third-edition title-page, there crossed out references to the name of the author and the edition, and had new ones struck off for all three volumes.

Now this was a blunder for, as altered, there still remained recognizable differences between the real and false first issues. In the one, for instance, the quotation from Horace precedes "In Three Volumes", while in the other, as in all editions after the first, the quotation follows the volume reference. Not this, however, but another difference must have aroused indignant comment. As it was no doubt pointed out to Bell by some irate patron, this could not pretend to be the "original edition," for instead of reading "M.DCC.XCVI." it bore the date "M.DCC.XCVII.", a date carried over from the third-edition copytext. Somewhat embarrassed by this disclosure, Bell may immediately have stopped the sale, moved all copies to the warehouse, and retired in confusion. The only thing to do, he thereupon seems to have decided, was to trust his good fortune that the several copies already sold would not be commonly recognized as fraudulent, and to avoid any further unpleasantness by altering the date of those that remained. Fortunately, as this was in roman rather than arabic digits, a few scrapes with a knife were sufficient to obliterate the offending "I." Removing the "I", however, necessarily involved removing the accompanying period; and the absence of this final mark, it will be observed, distinguishes this state from any other variant of The Monk. Here, then, is the disguised

and defaced specimen usually masquerading as the "first issue, first edition," but revealed to be nothing more than a doctored second state of the third issue, third edition.

So that the assigned position of this issue may be incontrovertible I return now to Mr. Coykendall's argument, and to his own copies, which he has kindly allowed me to examine. It is granted between us that the third edition and the three variants described are all composed of the same sheets. In Mr. Coykendall's discussion, however, it was not recognized that the title-page for the second issue differed from that for the third, nor was the original state of the third considered except as an anomaly. As for the relation between the third edition and what is now known to be the doctored state of the third issue of that edition (his "first issue, first edition"), Mr. Coykendall has this to say:

To this explanation there is a ready answer. Since, in Mr. Coykendall's own copies, the title-leaf volume 1, third edition, has horizontal chainlines exactly conjoined, as they should be, to those in leaf A4, whereas the title-leaf for the "first issue" has vertical chainlines not at all corresponding, the third edition is beyond question the first, not the last of the sequence, and all variants, in the order suggested, are necessarily subsequent to it.

Having been led into an initial misconception by taking the

physically conjugate title-leaf of the third edition for a cancellans, Mr. Coykendall discerns another characteristic of the issues which is not borne out by the evidence. This difference is merely accidental. So long as A4 is attached to the title-leaf it will remain in position A4. But if the title is excised, and the book trimmed and later rebound, then A4, disjoined from A1 on one side and from A3 on the other, is free to move to any position according to the whim of the binder.[42] Where this disjunction has occurred, as in the several issues of the first edition, and all but the first of the third, I have found A4 in any of the positions A2, A2v, A4, and A4v. The particular disarrangement Mr. Coykendall describes might have been recognized as an aberrancy had it been noted that with A4 before the registered signature A2, the latter is unaccountably in position A3.

With this explanation we have succeeded, I believe, in unravelling the last of a number of puzzles. A word needs to be said, finally, of Joseph Bell's enterprise in selling his issues fabricated from the third edition without arousing the suspicion of the authorities. Not wishing to precipitate the investigation which would surely follow a public announcement in the papers, Bell, for awhile at least, seems to have depended upon a wink and a nod to promote his under-the-counter trade. Later

on, though, he apparently decided to risk an advertisement in one of Lewis's plays, where it would come to the attention of those interested in this author and his notorious romance but not, he hoped, to those less sympathetically inclined. Accordingly he inserted in The East Indian (1800) the usual announcement for the fourth edition of The Monk and then, for the first time, a further notation: "In this edition the Author has paid particular attention to some passages that have been objected to.—A few remaining copies of the original edition may be had by applying to the Publisher." The announcement, I suspect, met with an immediate response, for by the time the fifth edition was out Bell was selling his fakes at twice the original price. "The First Edition," readers of Adelmorn the Outlaw (1801) are informed, "may be had at the Publisher's, price One Guinea."

As there are no later advertisements, I conclude that after five years of maneuvering and subterfuge the last copy of this spurious first issue had been sold, the last in a series of impostures and deceptions had gone undetected, from then until now. It is, in a way, a tribute to Bell's ingenuity that his final, his most audacious fraud, including his doctoring of the date, should not only have been accepted as the "first issue" but in more recent years have been vigorously defended as such.

Bibliography
A. Description

First edition, pre-publication state.

• "In the summer of 1795" (Life, 1, 151).

  No copy extant. Probably the same sheets as for the first issue, except that title-leaf, volume 1, would be integral, and would probably read "M.DCC.XCV."

First edition, first issue.

• March 12, 1796 (Morning Herald). price 10s. 6d.

  THE MONK: | A | ROMANCE. | [short French rule] | Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, ſagas, | Nocturnos lemures, portentaque. | Horat. | Dreams, magic terrors, ſpells of mighty power, | Witches, and ghoſts who rove at midnight hour. | [short French rule] | IN THREE VOLUMES. | VOL. I. [II, III] | [short French rule] | LONDON: | PRINTED FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | M.DCC.XCVI.

  12°. vol. 1: A4(±A1) B-K12 L8. vol. 2: [A]1 B-N12. vol. 3: [A]1 B-O12 P2. t. p.'s are cancels, chainlines horizontal. Vol. 3, p. [316] is blank.

  Copies examined: IU, MH, NN, ViU, Mr. Harold Greenhill (Chicago).

  Edition reviewed: British Critic, VII (June, 1796), 677; Monthly Mirror, II (June, 1796), 98; Critical Review, ser. 2, XIX (January, 1797), 194-200; Monthly Review, XXIII (August, 1797), 451.

  From this edition derive the Dublin (1796) and Dublin (1808) editions, each in two volumes.

First edition, second issue.

• ?March 15, 1797 (Chronicle Chronicle). price 10s. 6d.

  THE MONK: | A | ROMANCE. | [short French rule] | THE SECOND EDITION. | [short French rule] | [quotation] | [&c. as in 1st issue] | M.DCC.XCVI.

  Collation as for the first issue. t. p.'s are cancels, chainlines horizontal.

  This is the same book as the first issue except that vol. 1 cancellans t. p. has been replaced by another with indicated reading. The removed leaf from vol. 1 is again used as a cancellans in 3rd edition, 2nd issue, q. v.

  Copy examined: ViU.

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22





Second edition.

• October, 1796 (Analytical Review). price 10s. 6d.[1a]

  THE MONK: | A | ROMANCE. | By M. G. LEWIS, Esq. M. P. | [short French rule] | IN THREE VOLUMES. — VOL. I. [II, III] | [short French rule] | [quotation] | [short French rule] | THE SECOND EDITION. | [short double rule] | LONDON: | PRINTED FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | M.DCC.XCVI.

  Collation as for the first edition except that sig. A1 is conjugate.

  Copies examined: ICN, NN.

  Edition reviewed: Analytical Review, XXIV (October, 1796), 403-4; "London Review" in European Magazine, XXXI (February, 1797), 111-15.

  From this edition derive the Waterford "1796" [1818] and the Paris (1807) editions, each in three volumes.

Third edition, first issue.

• April 18, 1797 (Chronicle Chronicle, April 15). price 10s. 6d.

  THE MONK: | [&c. as in 2nd ed.] | [quotation] | [short French rule] | THE THIRD EDITION. | [short double rule] | LONDON: | PRINTED FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | M.DCC.XCVII.

  Collation as for the first edition except that sig. A1 is conjugate. On vol. 3, p. [316] there are advertisements for two books, both published in April, 1797.

  Copy examined: Mr. Frederick Coykendall (New York City).

  The review of this edition by Thomas J. Mathias (The Pursuits of Literature, Part IV; published July 19, 1797) resulted in its suppression in ?November, 1797.

Third edition, second issue.

• ?November, 1797. price 10s. 6d.

  This and the following issue of the 3rd edition represent attempts to disguise that edition as the first by the use of various title-leaves. In this issue the title-leaves of vols. II and III are cancelled without substitution. The cancelled title-leaf of vol. I is replaced by the leaf originally used in the first edition, first issue, but displaced in the second issue of the first edition. Chainlines for the cancellans are horizontal.

  Copy: British Museum. With author's MS. revisions for the fourth edition.

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23





Third edition, third issue (first and second states)

• ?November, 1797—May, 1801. price 10s. 6d. to 21s.[2a]

  THE MONK: | A | ROMANCE. | [short French rule] | IN THREE VOLUMES.—VOL. I. [II, III] | [short French rule] | [quotation] | [short double rule] | LONDON: | PRINTED FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | M.DCC.XCVII.

  Present in all three volumes, these cancels were set, with appropriate deletions, from the text of the 3rd edition t. p.'s, and are on paper with vertical chainlines.

  Copy examined: The Century Club (New York City).

  As a second state the above cancel titles were doctored by carefully scraping away the final digit of the date with its accompanying period so that the date is "corrected" to 'M.DCC.XVI'. In vol. I of the ViU copy the faint outlines of the deleted letterpress may still be discerned, and the other titles show that the paper has been scraped.

  Copies examined: ViU, Mr. Frederick Coykendall, Scribners—the Thackeray copy (New York City).

Fourth edition.

• February 28, 1798 (The Times). price 10s. 6d.

  Ambrosio, | OR | THE MONK: | A | ROMANCE. | By M. G. LEWIS, Esq. M. P. | [short French rule] | IN THREE VOLUMES—VOL. I. [II, III] | [short French rule] | [quotation] | [short French rule] | THE FOURTH EDITION, | With considerable Additions and Alterations. | [short Oxford rule] | LONDON: | PRINTED FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | [dash] | 1798.

  12°. vol. 1: A4 B-K12 L6. vol. 2: [A]1 B-M12 N8. vol. 3: [A]1 B-O12.

  Copy examined: ViU.

  Edition reviewed: Monthly Mirror, v (March, 1798), 157-58.

Fifth edition.

• 1800. price 12s.

  Ambrosio, | [&c. as in 4th ed., except: . . . [quotation] | [short French rule] | THE FIFTH EDITION, . . .] | LONDON: | PRINTED BY J. DAVIS, CHANCERY-LANE, | FOR J. BELL, OXFORD-STREET. | [dash] | 1800.

  Collation as for 4th edition. t. p. for 2nd volume reads 'CHANCERY-LAN'.

  Copies examined: NjP, Scribners.

B. Differentiae

• As a convenient check-list for determining among the issues which title-leaves in the first volume are conjugate to A4, and among the editions what preliminary gatherings belong to the text, the following data is submitted for the first three editions.

         

EDITION	Volume I title-leaf	Printers' marks, sigs. A-B
First	Integral . . . . . . . Order of readings	"A"--p/m	"B"--p/m
[*]1st state	Yes . . . . . . . quote-vol-1795	I [none]	22-3
1st issue	No . . . . . . . quote-vol-1796	II --	12-9
2nd issue	No . . . . . 2nd-quote-vol-1796	III --	13-4, 15-4

 

Second

Yes . . Lewis-vol-quote-2nd-1796

{I A2v-2 II -- III --

22-3 12-1 15-7

         

Third
1st issue	Yes . . Lewis-vol-quote-3rd-1797	I A2v-4	17-3, 19-2
[†]2nd issue	No . . . . . . . quote-vol-1796	II --	12-4
[†]3rd issue	No . . . . . vol-quote -1797	III --	12-2
(In second state date altered by hand to 1796.)}

Notes