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The Publication Of Steele's
Conscious
Lovers
by
Rodney M. Baine
The accessible accounts concerning the publication of Sir Richard Steele's Conscious Lovers are confused and conflicting. These accounts should be clarified, not only because the date of publication is generally incorrectly given but especially because in his interesting current biography Willard Connely unintentionally reflected upon Steele's honesty by showing Sir Richard selling to Lintot rights which he had already sold to the Tonsons:
Although Steele desperately needed cash, he did not sell the same copyright to both the Tonsons and Lintot. Instead, Lintot paid these sums
Sealed & Delivered
(being first duly Stamp'd)
Richard Steele [seal] in the presence of
Somerset Draper
Edward: Thomas
(Edward Thomas is Sr Richds Servt.)[3]
That these "divers other good Causes and Consideracions" were not a previous money payment seems probable, for in a Chancery pleading of December, 1722, Tonson deposed that for the copyright of The Conscious Lovers he had paid Steele £40 "and other valuable considerations."[4] Had Tonson made previous cash payments it would have been to his advantage to cite them. But by the spring of 1722 Steele must have reached some tentative understanding with Tonson, for on 1 March 1722 Lintot had agreed with Tonson for "the Half of Sir R. Steele's Comedy that was to be published," and paid him £25.[5]
A few days after he purchased the copyright from Steele, Tonson on 26 October 1722 made an "assignment" to Lintot of "the Half of the Conscious
But the actual agreement between Lintot and Tonson, as ambiguously recorded by Lintot, was "to be equally concerned in all the Plays they should buy, Eighteen Months following the above Date [16 February, 1718]." Evidently their blanket agreement had lapsed by 1722, and the original £25 paid Tonson as an "Agreement for the Half of Sir R. Steele's Comedy" was a preliminary and partial payment. On October 26, as Lintot's memorandum book shows, Tonson and Lintot reached a final agreement about The Conscious Lovers.[8]
On the last day of the phenomenal run of eighteen successive performances, ending 27 November 1722, The Conscious Lovers was finally announced for publication on December 1, and it duly appeared on that day,[9] although with a title-page post-dated 1723.
THE | Confcious Lovers. | A | COMEDY. | As it is Acted at the | Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, | By His MAJESTY's Servants. | [rule] | Written by | Sir RICHARD STEELE. | [rule] | Illud Genus Narrationis, quod in personis positum est, | debet habere Sermonis Festivitatem, Animorum Dissi|militudinem, Gravitatem, Lenitatem, Spem, Metum, | Suspicionem, Desiderium, Dissimulationem, Miseri|cordiam, Rerum, Varietates, Fortunœ Commutationem, | Insperatum Incommodum, Subitam Letitiam, Jucundum | Exitum Rerum. Cic. Rhetor. ad Herenn. Lib. 1. | [rule] | LONDON: | Printed for J. Tonson at Shakespear's Head over-|againſt Katharine-Street in the Strand. 1723.
8°: A-F8 G4; 52 leaves, pp. [16] 12-86 87-88.
[i], title; [ii], blank; [iii-viii], Dedication, To the King, signed Richard Steele, n. d.; [ix-xiii], The Preface; [xiv-xv], Prologue by Mr. Welsted, Spoken by Mr. Wilks; [xvi], Dramatis Personae; 1-86, text; 87-88, Epilogue by Mr. Welsted, Intended to be Spoken by Indiana.
The Epilogue actually spoken at the performance was prefixed to the second edition of Benjamin Victor's An Epistle to Sir Richard Steele, on his Play called The Conscious Lovers, published 4 December 1722, and was printed four days later in The British Journal.[10] It has probably never been printed with the play.
Of their edition of "many thousand," "a good part" had been sold when the publishers were threatened with a piratical edition. This edition, advertised for 8 December 1722, was, according to Tonson, to be sold by Francis Clifton, Robert Tooke, John Lightbody, and Susanna Collins. Their ventures were indeed not above suspicion. Clifton was a Catholic, and the other three were classed by Negus among the High Fliers, or Jacobites. All except "Lightbody" (or Lightboy), and possibly even he, printed in the Old Bailey. Clifton was continually in trouble for printing attacks against the government.[11] However Susanna Collins was, according to her quondam employee Thomas Gent, a good hearted "ancient gentlewoman."[12] Immediately instituting proceedings in Chancery Court, Tonson deposed that he
But piratical editions from other sources Tonson could not prevent. In December there appeared at Dublin an octavo edition.[14] Another edition dated 1723 was published by "T. Johnson: London,"[15] and a duodecimo edition for the same year is listed by Nicoll.[16] Despite these piracies printed outside the publishers' reach, however, Tonson and Lintot did not lose by their venture. One of the most popular plays of its day, The Conscious Lovers by 1791 reached its fifteenth edition.
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