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Notes
This paper is the partial result of research made possible by a Danforth Teacher Grant from the Danforth Foundation. In addition to the Danforth Foundation, of course, I am grateful to the staffs of the libraries cited in note three for the courtesy extended me during my research. I particularly wish to acknowledge the special assistance given me by Mr. Howard M. Nixon (the British Museum), Mr. T. M. McRobert, Mr. John P. Harthan (the Victoria and Albert Museum), Mrs. June Moll, and Mrs. Sally Leach (University of Texas Library).
"Bibliographical Note on James Shirley's The Polititian," The Library, 4th ser., XVIII (1937), 107.
Of the thirteen, seven are quartos found in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (1), the British Museum (3), the Folger Shakespeare Library (1), the University of Texas (1), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (1). The remaining six copies are octavos found in the British Museum (2), the Library of Congress (1), The University of Texas (1), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (2).
One of the octavo copies of the play in the Victoria and Albert Museum is bound with The Gentleman of Venice and Six New Playes. P. Nissen in his monograph, James Shirley: Ein Beitrag zur englischen Litteraturgeschichte (1901), p. 24n, states that he found the two plays bound with Six New Playes in the Hamburger Stadtbibliothek. These, however, like those in the Victoria and Albert Museum, appear to have been added to the larger volume at a date later than 1655.
The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum each house one such octavo "collection" of The Gentleman of Venice and The Polititian.
The imprint reads: LONDON, | Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be | sold at his Shop at the Princes Armes in St. | Pauls Church-yard. 1655.
The Gentleman of Venice reads: "The names with some small Characters of the Persons." (sig. A3r)
Philip Massinger, Three New Playes, Lodowick Carlell, The Passionate Lovers, and R[obert]. B[aron]., Mirza.
Greg, II, 861 and Huberman, p. 107, agree with these findings. In addition, Huberman says that he has been informed by the University of Texas Library that another octavo incorrectly reads L1 for F1 (p. 105). The present staff of the library at Austin is unable to find such an octavo; still such a "misprint" would only support the findings of this present study.
For example, on p. 29 (sig. E2 in quarto and BM8, sig. C2 in the other octavos), a comma is properly placed after the word danger in the first line in all the quartos and BM8; in the other octavo copies it is raised to the top of the r. On the same page the numeral 29 is unclearly printed in all the quartos and BM8; it is distinctly printed in all the other octavo copies.
It is possible that Wise, aware of the authentic misprints in The Gentleman of Venice, decided to make up copies of The Polititian thinking that the model of the former would give credibility and even a touch of authenticity to the made-up texts of the latter. One wonders at the extent of Wise's conscious deception when he reads the bibliographical comment on The Polititian in the Wrenn Catalogue (A Catalogue of the Library of the Late John Henry Wrenn, compiled by Harold B. Wrenn and edited by Thomas J. Wise [1920], IV, 145) in which Wise notes the signature "misprints" in the octavo T8 and explains them by saying that the play was "first set up in quarto" and then reimposed in octavo.
Thomas J. Wise and the Pre-Restoration Drama: A Study in Theft and Sophistication (1959), pp. 37-41. It appears as if the quarto leaves used to complete the imperfect octavos were taken from the now imperfect quarto presently in the Aitken collection at the University of Texas Library. The quarto inserts in BM8 and T8 account for all but two of the missing leaves in the Aitken quarto. Wise, of course, provided Aitken with copies of pre-Restoration plays as he did Wrenn.
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