 | |  |
i
Although Sir Henry Herbert records a Revels license for "The Coronation by James Shirley" on February 6, 1634/5,[2] the authorship of the play is not specified in the Stationers' Register entry of April 25, 1639: "Mr Crooke wm Cooke Entred for their Copyes vnder the hands of Mr Wykes & Mr Rothwell warden these five playes vdlt Night walters [sic], Opportunity. Loues Cruellty, The Coronation witt without money. ijs vjd."[3] Moreover, the title-page of the 1640 quarto reads as follows: "THE / CORONATION / A COMEDY. / As it was presented by her / Majesties Servants at
Allen H. Stevenson notes that The Night Walker and Wit without Money were written by Fletcher and suggests that the error on The Coronation title-page came about because "all five plays arrived in one package and the instructions concerning them were misunderstood."[4] This may be true, but it should also be noted that of the five plays listed in the Stationers' Register entry only Wit without Money was printed in 1639; the others were not printed until 1640. Furthermore, there seems to have been no misunderstanding when Cotes printed Love's Cruelty and The Opportunity, since the title-pages of both plays correctly credit Shirley. A possible source of the printer's error may be seen by comparing the title-page of The Coronation with that of The Night Walker: "THE / NIGHT- / VVALKER, / OR THE / LITTLE THEIFE. / A COMEDY, / As it was presented by her / Majesties Servants, at the Private / House in Drury Lane. // Written by John Fletcher. Gent. // [ornament] // LONDON, / Printed by Tho. Cotes, for Andrew Crooke, / and William Cooke. 1640."
Collations of the title-pages of the Pierpont Morgan Library copies of the two plays, as well as those found in the Henry E. Huntington Library, reveal the following similarities and differences: (1) Four lines, "A COMEDY. / As it was presented by her / Majesties Servants at the private / House in Drury Lane." appear to have been printed from the same setting of type. Minor differences should be noted, however. The Coronation title-page carries a period after "COMEDY", whereas The Night Walker has a comma in the comparable position. The Night Walker has a comma after "Servants" and an upper case "P" for "Private", whereas The Coronation omits this comma and uses a lower case "p". (2) Both pages carry three two-part rules. The top rules are identical in both printings; the lower two rules appear to have been turned end to end and are set at differing vertical intervals from the top rule and from each other. (3) The author designations appear to have been printed from the same setting of type, but the ornaments are not the same and the imprints are from different settings.
These similarities indicate that at least five lines of type and three rules were left standing after one of the plays was printed; with minor changes these elements were used again in the printing of the second work. There is no evidence to establish the order in which the plays were printed; nevertheless, it is possible that the use of type left standing after the printing of The Night Walker may have led to the erroneous designation of author on the title-page of The Coronation.
| | |