University of Virginia Library

II. Hamlet, Lear, and Othello

The complete sequence in which intercalary formes are encountered among regular formes is a long one, embracing six complete plays and parts of three others—a total of some 89 formes. Compositors A and B set Coriolanus, Caesar, Macbeth, the end of Richard III, Henry VIII, and about half of Hamlet. And E set Titus, Romeo, and part of Troilus. Only twice in the whole Coriolanus-Hamlet progression do two intercalary formes appear consecutively. And such formes usually appear, not only singly, but between small groups of regular formes. Thus E's work on Titus and Romeo got on only slowly. Eventually, however, he completed the last forme for quire ff and is presently found at work on a quire containing both the final pages of Romeo and the early ones of Troilus and Cressida.

The evidence by which it is possible to show precisely how much of Troilus was in type before work on this play was discontinued does not concern us here. It need only be said that a beginning was made on a regular six-leaf quire containing the end of Romeo and the beginning of Troilus but that it was decided to stop work on Troilus long before this quire had been finished and at about the time A and B completed the setting of Henry VIII and resumed work on quire oo for Hamlet. In consequence of this decision Compositor E prepared two formes for a one-sheet quire (present 2gg; pages 73-76) and Romeo and Juliet was finished independently of Troilus.[16] Forme 2gg1v:2, the second of the two formes for quire 2gg, is thus the forme with which E's work for Romeo came to an end. And it is also the last forme set by E that appears between two regular formes set by A and B. A new development now takes place. Its nature will at once be suggested by another short sequence. The progression of formes from 001v:6 through pp2:5v was as follows:

Through pp3:4v this sequence is clearly of a piece with the one given on page 8 above. A and B together ultimately set three of the four regular formes, but A was required elsewhere before he had set all of 001, and B therefore finished 001 and set all of the next forme, pp3v:4. E, as always, set the intercalary forme; and the next forme was set jointly by A and B. But pp4v is Compositor A's last page. He reappears briefly, after even the preliminaries had been finished, to share one final task with Compositor B: except for two pages earlier set by E and preserved, the present Folio text of Troilus was set by A and B working together once more. But Compositor A had nothing to do with any page of Hamlet after pp4v—nor with any of the following Tragedies right through Cymbeline. And A's place as B's partner was taken by Compositor E, beginning with pp5.

This is made perfectly clear by various kinds of evidence. Types show conclusively that two different men, working from different cases, set the different pages of pp2v:5 and pp2:5v—as well as of many later formes. Spellings indicate that neither of these was A, that one of them was B, and that the other uses the same mixture of certain A and B spellings that have been noticed in E's earlier work in Titus and Romeo. And above all, perhaps, the quality of the setting done by this man continues to reflect the same inexpertness so obvious in the earlier plays. Hence the following facts about the seven formes listed above are of interest:

• (a) there are no press-variants in any of the pages of the formes that were set by either A or B;
• (b) both pages of E's forme 2gg1v:2 are press-variant;
• (c) both pp2v:5 and 2:5v are press-variant but the variants are in each case confined to but one page of the forme: pp5 and 5v, the two pages set by the compositor who here replaces A as B's partner, show numerous press-corrections.

It may be added that most of the later work of this man was also proof read. Titus and Romeo, it has been noticed, are remarkable for the large number of their formes that were proofed and corrected. Only in Hamlet, Lear, and Othello do we find similar concentrations of press-variants.

Thus types, spellings, quality of setting, an unusual amount of press-correction—all point one way: Compositor E set pp5 and 5v; and similar evidence shows that he also set many subsequent pages in quires pp-ss. Nor is this surprising, viewed in the light of the whole course that the printing of the Tragedies had followed up to this point. With the setting of 2gg1v:2 Compositor E had finished all of the material on which he had so far been working: Titus was in print, the last forme

of Romeo was about to be printed, and work on Troilus had been indefinitely postponed. E had demonstrated that, although what he set might require more proof reading than the work of A or B, he could be useful; and A was needed for other tasks. Compositor E was therefore put to work with B and on what was for him fresh material— Hamlet to begin with—and A went elsewhere. In due course, to be sure, E also disappears. Quires Gg-hh and tt-bbb (Timon, most of Othello, and all of Antony and Cymbeline) were set wholly by B. Compositor B did not work alone, however, on the last formes of quire pp nor on quires qq-ss; and the following pages of the Folio texts of Hamlet, Lear, and Othello were set by Compositor E:

Certain peculiarities in the later tragedies of the Folio—in the plays set after A's departure, that is—throw additional light on E's capabilities and limitations. Three of these may be mentioned.

(1) The Folio text of King Lear, as has long been known, was set from a quarto that had been extensively "corrected" through collation with a manuscript version of the play. The copy must have been considerably more difficult than that used for Titus or Romeo. Hence it may be very significant that Compositor E did not set certain pages of Lear that would ordinarily have fallen into his stint.[17]

When two compositors work together on successive quires of the First Folio, the compositor who sets the pages for the second half of one quire ($4-6v) also sets those for the first half of the next ('$1-3v). Thus we find, for example:

This is the almost invariable practice throughout the book, and it is the obvious consequence of a simple division of large blocks of the copy: Compositor A held the copy for a continuous sequence of pages from the middle of quire t to the middle of quire v (t4-v3v); B held the copy for the preceding pages of quire t and for the pages from the middle of quire v to the middle of the following quire. Nor is this way of dividing copy ever permanently upset by other demands upon the workmen in question. One compositor often sets both pages of one or more formes for a quire for which both nevertheless do some setting: Compositor A may be temporarily absent, and his block of copy is at such times turned over to B so that the necessary formes (each containing, of course, one page from each half of the quire) can be kept going to press. When A returns, however, he resumes work on his block of copy. The result of this practice—and the evidence shows a remarkable constancy in it—is that the same compositor does not set both early and late pages for the same quire unless he is working alone and therefore setting some pages for the absent partner whose block of the copy he temporarily holds. When both compositors are present we simply do not find, normally, either one of them setting both early and late pages of the quire in hand.

Quire qq is triply anomalous in this respect. What we find is this:

Compositor E set the late pages of quire pp, B the early. Hence we should expect E to set the early pages of quire qq (1-3v) and B the late pages (qq4-6v); but the reverse is true. Yet not wholly so: E set the earlier page (qq2v) and B the later page (qq5) of the first forme after qq3:4v, which had been set wholly by E. After qq2v:5, however, another switch was made and E set the late pages (qq5v, 6, and 6v), B the early pages (qq2, 1v, and 1), of the last three formes. This can only mean that the copy for quire qq was most irregularly divided—or else, and more probably, that there were highly irregular exchanges between E and B of normally divided copy. Which of these alternatives better accounts for the observed facts is irrelevant. The result is in either case the same: certain pages that would normally have been the responsibility of one compositor were in fact set by the other. Since each page set anomalously by one compositor implies a corresponding page set anomalously by his partner, the irregularities are reciprocal and can be described in terms of what either compositor did, and did not, set. The departures from normal may therefore be listed as follows:

• (a) B set qq3v, instead of qq4, at the beginning of the quire;
• (b) B set qq5, instead of qq2v, and
• (c) B then set qq2 instead of qq5v.

Compositor B also set qq1v and 1 instead of qq6 and 6v; but this irregularity is probably only a consequence of the shift that gave him the copy for qq2, the early page in the forme that immediately preceded qq1v:6 and 1:6v. That no further abnormal shifts were made is indicated by his proceeding quite regularly from the early pages of quire qq (2, 1v, and 1) to the late pages of quire rr.

What, then, does all this mean? That normal practice was not followed is a matter of demonstrable fact; but why should the copy for certain pages of quire qq (one and a half pages of Hamlet and 10 pages of Lear) be subject to such special treatment? Why, more specifically, should the copy for qq3v, 5, and 2—all of which are pages in King Lear —be so manipulated as to fall to B rather than to his less skillful partner? We cannot be sure. One explanation, however, immediately suggests itself. The copy for Lear cannot have been easy, and parts of it must have been more or less excessively annotated. Was the copy for these three pages too hard for Compositor E—or at least difficult enough to make advisable the anomalous exchanges that have been noticed? The inference is consistent with other indications of E's inability to deal efficiently with all kinds of copy; and no other explanation seems to accord so well with all that we know both of Folio Lear and of the compositors who set it.[18]

It may be added, finally, that a similar manipulation of copy is found in quire ss (shared by Lear and Othello) —where ss3, again a page of Lear, was set by Compositor B, but set from copy that would normally have fallen to Compositor E. These irregularities in quires qq and ss, in each case involving the copy for Lear, are without parallel elsewhere in the Tragedies.[19]

(2) Work on Troilus as the immediate successor to Romeo and Juliet was only well begun when it was abruptly discontinued; but the gap thus left between Romeo and Caesar (long since printed) was not quickly filled. It was eventually filled, though very imperfectly, by Timon of Athens. The printing of Timon (and with it a reset version of the last half-page of Romeo) thus appears to mark the final abandonment of the original plan for Troilus. In any event, Timon (quires Gg and hh) was not begun until after quire rr had been set—and set

jointly by E and B. The new E-B partnership had been established and was working. It had completed quire pp, produced quires qq and rr, and was presently to turn out quire ss. But Timon of Athens, which falls between quires rr and ss, was set wholly by Compositor B. Compositor E was at hand during part of the interval, for he appears to have done the distributing that immediately preceded B's setting, first of Gg3, then of Gg4v; and he clearly set part of quire ss while B was at work on the later pages of Timon: forme ss3v:4 is in fact an intercalary forme, set wholly by E, between the fourth and fifth formes of quire hh; and the second ss forme, also wholly by E, falls between the last hh forme and an ss forme set jointly by B and E. The partners, in short, were both available; but one of them had no share whatever in the setting of Timon of Athens. Again, therefore, we find a highly irregular method of working, but also one that is eminently reasonable if Compositor E was unable to deal competently with the manuscript copy from which Folio Timon must have been set.

(3) Compositor E finally disappears from the Folio picture after quire ss. It is a little surprising that he had no hand in quires tt-vv, into which the greater part of Othello falls. It is not surprising, however, that Antony and Cymbeline were set wholly by B. Like Timon, the last two plays in the Tragedies can only have been set from manuscript copy.

Compositor B set ss1:6v, but most of quire ss, including all of the first six pages of Othello, was E's work. After setting ss6, however, E is seen no more. His disappearance thus coincides very closely with the end of the first act of Othello, only the last 19 lines of which fall in ss6v and so were set by B. It is therefore tempting to suppose that the copy for all but Act I of Othello was, as parts of the Lear copy seem to have been, beyond E's powers—perhaps because more heavily annotated than the copy for Act I. Possibly this suggestion is worth testing; but if so it must certainly be tested by other evidence than what is provided by the bibliographical peculiarities of the First Folio alone—where there is little to show that Compositor E was not simply required elsewhere after setting ss6, and did not again become available for work on the Shakespeare Folio until after Othello had been completed. Yet it may be mentioned that, whereas E's last four pages are not press-variant, an unusually large number of the remaining pages of Othello, all set by B, are so. Why this should be can hardly be said out of hand; but it is at least consistent with the hypothesis that the copy for Act I was relatively easy, while the copy for the rest of the play was more difficult and considered likely to give rise to serious error.