University of Virginia Library

II

Each of our only two copies of the first edition of the Quip shows two different and important variants. It is by this chance that we know the original contents of sheet E, and also that sheet F was revised during printing. Quite possibly changes were introduced into the text of other sheets during printing but if so, the chance that gave us variants of E and F has left us with duplicates of the same state of any other sheets that may have been altered. The Huntington and Bodleian copies do not represent all the different combinations that existed even of the varying states of sheets E and F, for it is clear that the copy of the first edition followed in the first reprint of 1592 must have contained the cancelled version of E (as in the Bodleian copy) and a revised version of F. It could not have been the Bodleian copy or another exactly similar to it, for the original comparison of the baker in the pillory to Christ on the Cross does not reappear in the reprint.[6] Moreover the 1592 reprint which Mr Miller believes to be the earliest of that series seems to be following here an improved version of the Huntington text of signature F. The Huntington reading has already been cited above; the Westminster Abbey copy of the Quip reads instead (E3, lines 16-21):-

This follows the original (Bodleian) wording exactly from 'the world cries out . . ." onwards, and is clearly better than the revision in the Huntington copy, for it gets rid of the Huntington's redundant 'where most people resort' and restores the significant phrase 'by many ounces'. We must conclude either that there was a second revision of sheet F (and consequently a third state, now lost), or that the printer of the first 1592 reprint, finding the reading of the revised version of F4v (as in the Huntington copy) unsatisfactory, sought out a copy of the original version (as in the Bodleian) and conflated the two texts to produce a better version. I find the latter explanation difficult to credit, and therefore conclude that sheet F was revised twice during the first printing of the Quip. There are other grounds for holding this view.

Mr Miller has found that some at least of the type of Wolfe's 1592 reprints of the Quip was kept standing.[7] Is it possible that Wolfe, a shrewd printer and publisher of somewhat unorthodox business methods, realizing that Greene's Quip might be a 'best-seller', kept the type of the first edition standing, ready to meet any unexpectedly heavy demand for copies? If so, we have a very simple explanation of how several states of sheet F came to exist, for standing type lends itself in many ways to the generation of variants. If this surmise is correct, the first edition of the Quip may have been much larger than was usual, perhaps even larger than was officially permitted. Whatever its size, the disappearance of all but two copies shows how widely Greene's pamphlet was read, and thumbed out of existence, on first publication. It is also a warning that the total number of variant states may have been greater even than those postulated above, and that most of the textual alterations (possibly all except the cancellation of the passage about the Harveys) may have been introduced by the printer and publisher.