University of Virginia Library

This note is part of an investigation of the Bibliography of Restoration Drama under grants from the Research Council of the Richmond Area University Center and the Research Committee of the University of Virginia.

A classic example, which I shall always remember, is my wrong "critical" assignment of priority to a resetting in Dekker and Middleton's Roaring Girl (1611), properly reversed on strict bibliographical evidence by J. G. McManaway. See my "Thomas Dekker: Two Textual Notes," The Library, 4th ser., XVII (1937), 338-340; and McManaway, "Thomas Dekker: Further Textual Notes," The Library, 4th ser., XIX (1938), 176-179. Another example, which I can mention with pleasanter associations, is my bibliographical investigation of the order of the two 1669 editions of Dryden's Wild Gallant in The Library, 5th ser., V (1950), 51-54; see also Studies in Bibliography, III (1950), 52-57.

This catchword correction is of some real interest. Under ordinary circumstances a compositor of a reprint follows regularly the catchword on the recto page of his printed copy, since he must turn the page to know whether it is right or wrong, and thus original variants between catchwords on the recto pages of successive editions and following words on the versos often become perpetuated. On the other hand, for a reprint to make such an error would be most difficult to explain. Simple misprints, of course, do occur, as the misprint "They" in the D4 catchword of (§) for the correct "Thy" of (*).

For various examples, see my "Bibliographical Evidence from the Printer's Measure," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 156-162.

It would be much more plausible to find a miscalculation about the size of the edition-sheet existing if the two sections of the book had been printed in different shops. But the fact that the standing type from the (*) head-title was used on the title-page printed by the workmen of the second section is sufficient evidence that the two parts were manufactured in one house.

Since type was not distributed until its skeleton-forme had been stripped, and this stripping was not accomplished until the next forme was ready to be imposed, we should also need to suppose that the compositor had made an almost immediate imposition of the second forme of E from the skeleton of the last forme of D, although the press would not require the forme for some time. However, this is not impossible.

The relation of the compositor to methods of imposition according to the speed of the press governed by the size of the edition-sheet is a technical matter carefully studied by C. J. K. Hinman, "New Uses for Headlines as Bibliographical Evidence," English Institute Annual, 1941 (1942), pp. 207-212.

The pattern of the four (probably five) sets of running-titles in F-I is clearly not that associated with one-press printing and instead indicates that two or more presses were assigned to the section. It would, therefore, be printed more quickly than B-E if both had started at the same moment. But there is nothing against a delay in beginning the second section that would cause both sections to be finished at about the same time.

So far I have seen no mixed copies.

According to Moxon, at this date it was the printer's duty to fold the sheets and collate them into separate copies, ready for the binder, before delivering them to the stationer. Of course we do not know that this was the invariable practice, but evidence exists to suggest that it may well have been the usual one.

If one wants to lean the maximum weight on the evidence of he spelling of "Battels" versus "Battles," the appearance of "Battels" on B1 in both settings is most readily explained as inadvertent following of the (*) copy by the (§) compositor, whose normal spelling habit thereafter asserted itself. If so, (§) would necessarily be the resetting.

The difficulties in the order of (*) D followed by E have already been sketched in another connection. They consist chiefly in the fact that the compositor of E, on the evidence of the measure, did not compose any part of F, although shortly after the first forme of E was delivered to the press he should have begun this setting. The lack of standing type from D is also a difficulty which has been discussed.