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Notes
Until H. P. Stokes, in his introduction to the Griggs facsimile (Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles, No. 13 [1886]) demonstrated that the title-page with the reference to performance at the Globe was earlier, it had generally been held that the a title-page was first. The editors of the Cambridge edition (1863-66) had accepted the erroneous order.
William Aldis Wright, The Cambridge Shakespeare, 2nd. ed. (1892), IV, viii, noted that the lower portion of both title-pages had been printed from the same type.
W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration (1939), No. 279, so considers them, as does Henrietta Bartlett, A Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto, 1594-1709 (1939), p. 121. R. B. McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (1927), p. 177, suggested that in books like Troilus and Cressida (which he cites) the new matter might constitute merely a cancel and not a separate issue.
In the Yale Elizabethan Club copy, half-sheet a is inserted before the original title-page. It is impossible now to determine whether this represents the original state of this copy or a later sophistication. The copy is the Daniel-Huth-Cochran one, bound in morocco with Daniel's monogram. See Bartlett, op. cit., p. 121.
Bartlett, op. cit., pp. 121-22, lists twelve copies, assigning two to The Folger Shakespeare Library (nos. 1217 and 1218). No. 1217 is not at present in The Folger Shakespeare Library, and Dr. Giles E. Dawson, Curator of Rare Books, writes me that a search of the library's records and of Mr. Folger's papers reveals no evidence that Mr. Folger or the library ever owned this copy. I have been unable to locate it elsewhere. Miss Bartlett describes it (p. 121) as "The Quaritch (purchased privately, 1919, sold, 1920, £1500) copy. Bound in morocco."
Neither A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, (1909) nor Peter Alexander, "Troilus and Cressida, 1609," The Library, 4th ser., IX (1928), 267-86, attacked the problem. E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare (1930), I, 442, suggested that Bonion and Walley (the publishers) decided to cancel the original title-page when they realized that the play had never been produced on the public stage. Chambers presents the generally accepted theory as to why the cancel was printed but (like Alexander and Pollard) does not consider the how or when (save for the general conclusion that at some unspecified time after the original title-page had been printed, the publishers decided to effect the cancel).
William Aldis Wright, op. cit., VI, vii-viii, suggested that "copies with this [the original] title-page were first issued for the theater, and afterwards those with the new title-page and preface for the general reader." This highly doubtful speculation has not met with general approval.
"Running-Title Evidence for Determining Half-Sheet Imposition," Papers of the Bibliographical Society, University of Virginia, I (1948-49), 199-202.
It seems most improbable that the printer would impose an inner forme with one page of letterpress and three blank pages, and make up a similar imposition in another skeleton for the outer forme. Since in some copies of Troilus and Cressida blank leaf M2 is preserved conjugate with M1, such printing would have given a blank half-sheet fold which has always been removed. This possibility need not be considered seriously.
This condition would be found if the two half-sheets in individual copies had been cut apart from the same full sheet, or if they had been cut apart in series at some prior time but bound in fairly consistent order with this earlier operation. Dr. Bowers has kept records of Restoration play quartos and informs me that when running-titles indicate two half-sheets were printed together, the vast majority of copies will not have clashing watermarks (or their absence) in the two separated parts. The evidence is not invariable but is strongly weighted in this direction.
If, on further examination, copies are found to contain watermarks in both a and M (or lack watermarks in both), I do not think this would seriously discount the other evidence afforded by the watermarks.
The measurement of the full type-pages in L and M is 157(164) x 87 mm. The horizontal measurement may vary slightly from 86 to 88 mm. in other sections of the book, but in L and M it is 87 mm. for all pages, the measure found in half-sheet a. Eld did not invariably use an 87 mm. measure in printing play quartos. In three other quartos printed by him at about this time, the following measures are used: The Divils Charter (1607): 94 mm.; The Puritaine (1607): 92 mm.; and Ram Alley (1611): 90 mm. It would seem therefore more than coincidence that the horizontal type-page measurement of the type-pages in a 2 should coincide with the measurement of the type-pages in L and M.
If two presses were used, the time would be cut approximately in half. If fewer than the maximum copies were printed, the time would also be somewhat less, but it is unlikely that the edition was smaller than 1250 copies. Any decision about the number of presses involved in printing this quarto must await further investigation now in process.
Neither Bonion nor Walley was a printer; both were booksellers and publishers. Walley's shop was 'The Harts Horn in Foster Lane' from 1608 until 1655. Bonion's shop was 'The Spread Eagle near the great North Door of St. Paul's Church' from 1607 until 1610. See R. B. McKerrow, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, 1557-1640 (The Bibliographical Society, 1910), pp. 42-43, and H. R. Plomer, A Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, 1641-67 (The Bibliographical Society, 1907), p. 188.
In his account of the duties of the warehouse-keeper, Moxon describes activities that are more closely related to the binding than the printing of books. His account probably applies to the large post-Restoration printing establishments and may not accurately describe conditions that prevailed 75 years earlier in the smaller Elizabethan shops. According to Moxon, the job printer delivered his work to the bookseller with the sheets 'gathered,' 'collated,' 'folded,' 'pressed,' and thus ready to be sewn. However, it seems more likely, according to fragmentary evidence for the earlier period, that Eld would have delivered unfolded sheets tied up in bundles according to signature. Nothing is said in Moxon's account about marking pages to be cancelled or about cutting a sheet in half that contained two separate half-sheets. Eld may or may not have cut the aM sheets; the surviving can-cellanda are not marked in any way.
One may speculate about possible accidents and errors even though in this case it seems impossible to demonstrate that one or another occurred. If Eld divided the aM sheets before delivery, one bundle of a half-sheets may have been overlooked and thus never delivered to the publishers; or he may have delivered too few a half-sheets to one of the two publishers; or, while stored in a ware-house, one bundle of a half-sheets may have been damaged; or the publishers may have failed to include a half-sheets with one lot of sheets sent to the binder. If the aM sheets were uncut when they reached the binders, an error in arranging the sheets in 'heaps' for 'gathering' or some other careless mistake may have been made. One speculation, for which there is no evidence whatsoever, could be made that copies lacking a 2 represent printer's 'copy books.' See F. R. Johnson, "Printers 'Copy Books' and the Black Market in the Elizabethan Book Trade," The Library, 5th. ser., I (1946), 97-105.
Fredson Bowers, "Criteria for Classifying Hand-Printed Books as Issues and Variant States," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, XLI (1947), 291, n. 16. The reasons for this classification are elaborated in his Principles of Bibliographical Description (Princeton, 1949). Pre-publication changes to a book, machined as a part of its continuous printing, cannot constitute reissue except under the most unusual circumstances and can be classified as 'separate issue' only if it can be demonstrated that copies in each form were intentionally sold as a unit. Otherwise, variant forms resulting from pre-publication printing constitute only 'variant state.'
The Dumbe Knight, printed by Nicholas Okes in 1608, parallels Troilus and Cressida in many respects. (See W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, No. 277). In this book, for which Greg gives the collation 4°, A-I4 K2, the original title-page appears as A2 in some copies (A1 and A2v blank). A3 contains an address to the reader, and the text begins on A4. In other copies, A2 has been cancelled and replaced by a new title-page, the only significant difference between it and the original title-page being the change of 'historicall' to 'pleasant' and the addition of the author's name. The lower portion of this cancelling title-page is printed from the same setting of type as the original title-page. Greg lists two copies having the original title-page only, three in which the cancel has been effected, and two in which both titles are present. He states that the cancelling title-page was almost certainly printed as K2, for in the Folger copy the cancellans and K1, though now separate, can be seen to have been conjunct. If the cancelling title-page were printed as K2, there were probably as many copies of it as of K1, i.e. the number of copies of the edition. One is naturally led to ask why the cancel was not carried out in all copies, since the ratio between surviving copies suggests that in a relatively large number the cancel was not made. Yet copies having the uncan-celled title-page probably represent a binder's error, as in Troilus and Cressida.
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