University of Virginia Library

"The Spelling of the First Folio," TLS (June 3, 1920), p. 352.

Seventeen of these words occur but once in each part, and therefore they may be dismissed as of little significance; seven others differ only by the doubling of a final consonant (eternal/eternall) or of a medial one (rubs/rubbes), but at times the evidence here is contradictory. Nine words, however, appear to be significant: afraid/affraid, countreyes/countries, deare/deere and dearest/deerest, maiestie/maiesty, thick/thicke, traytor / traitor, weyward / weyard, and beene/bin.

"Principles Governing the Use of Variant Spellings as Evidence of Alternate Setting by Two Compositors," The Library, 4th ser., XXI (1940), 78-94.

Another test, which confirmed these findings, is that of A. K. McIlwraith: see "Some Bibliographical Notes on Massinger," The Library, 4th series, XI (1930), 87-91. This test deals only with scene headings, stage directions, and speech prefixes which often are set in characteristic ways by compositors, but here again no demonstrable two-compositor pattern emerged.

See, for example, the continuity of compositor between The Tempest and Two Gentlemen; Two Gentlemen-Merry Wives; Measure for Measure-Errors; As You Like It-Taming of the Shrew; Shrew-All's Well; All's Well-Twelfth Night; King John-Richard II; Richard II-1 Henry IV; 1 Henry IV-2 Henry IV; Henry V-1 Henry VI; 1 Henry VI-2 Henry VI; 3 Henry VI-Richard III; Richard III-Henry VIII; see also table above for further examples. In each of these instances the compositor who was setting at the end of a play continued to set at the beginning of the following play.

I realize the exceptions that occur with such a generalization. For instance, the Q Lear (1608) was machined with three skeletons; yet only one compositor was at work: see Fredson Bowers, "An Examination of the Method of Proof Correction in Lear," The Library, 5th ser., II (1947), 20-44; and Philip Williams, "The Compositor of the 'Pied-Bull' Lear," Studies in Bibliography, II (1949), 61-68. But this is a very unusual occurrence. I hope to present in the near future a detailed examination of the use of one or two skeletons during the printing of the Folio.

Incidentally, this examination confirmed in certain particulars the conjectured preferential spellings advanced by Mr. Satchell. But because it was much more inclusive than his restricted area of one play, it furnished much more solid evidence that he could give at that time.

In order to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis, I examined ten plays in the Folio that were set from printed copy. In six plays the compositor is not determined by the five-word test: Much Ado, Love's Labor's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice, Titus, and Romeo and Juliet. Two of the plays that underwent extensive revisions, Richard III and Lear, have partly determined compositors. Only two of these plays, Richard II and Troilus, have definitely determinable compositors.

This method of examination may yield some evidence concerning the compositor(s) of certain Shakespeare plays in the Folio that now are classed as by "unknown compositor(s)." If it does not identify the compositor(s), it at least will exclude the possibility that those plays have been set by the known compositors, A and B.