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Notes
Robert S. Pirie, "Fine Paper Copies of Donne's Biathanatos," The Book Collector, 14 (1965), 362. Fine-paper copies have pages as large as 6 x 7 3/4 inches; ordinary copies have pages up to 5 11/16 x 7 9/16 inches on paper with an elaborate vase watermark closely resembling the twin watermarks a and b of "Pot C/AB" in figures 7a and 7b in Allan H. Stevenson's "Watermarks Are Twins," SB, 4 (1951-52), 72. The only differences are that the crescent in the vase's neck in Biathanatos is in its body in Stevenson's illustration, and the initials, "BV," in the vase's body in Biathanatos are "AB" in Stevenson's example. Interestingly, Stevenson's watermark is from a work published in 1655 by J. Flesher, printer of Donne's Letters to Severall Persons of Honour (London, 1651).
John Sparrow, "Manuscript Corrections in the Two Issues of Donne's Biathanatos," The Book Collector, 21 (1972), 29-32. Reprinted in To Geoffrey Keynes (1972), pp. 65-68, 3 plates. The two issues differ only in their title pages: the undated, first-issue title page lists John Dawson as the printer whereas that of the second issue asserts that the work was printed for Humphrey Moseley in 1648.
Charles Morgenstern, "John Sparrow's 'Manuscript Corrections in Two Issues of Donne's Biathanatos,'" The Book Collector, 21 (1972), 557.
Ernest Sullivan, "Authoritative Manuscript Corrections in Donne's Biathanatos," SB, 28 (1975), 268-276.
Presentation copy number one in Geoffrey Keynes, A Bibliography of Dr. John Donne, 4th ed. (1973), p. 113. He identifies "the Kinsmoll" as "Lady Kingsmell," but inaccurately and incompletely transcribes the inscription and does not locate the copy.
I have not seen this volume; James S. Irvine, Speer Library Assistant Librarian for Public Services, provided the information.
Transcribed in Ernest Sullivan's "The Presentation Letter in the Earl of Oxford Copy of Donne's Biathanatos," PBSA, 70 (1976), 405.
Mr. Pirie graciously provided this information. Keynes lists (p. 116) a ninth presentation copy inscribed "A Present from Doctor John Dunne," but does not identify its inscriber or location, and the signature, "Doctor John Dunne," is unlike the usual "Io: Donne." Pirie's note mentions another possible first-issue, fine-paper copy, but its location is unknown: "Lot 1179 in the Ellis Sale (Sotheby, 16 November 1885), Donne, Biathanatos [? 1646] (Wing D 1858) is described as being on 'large' paper" (p. 362).
Although the Stationers' Register shows that Moseley formally acquired the rights to Biathanatos on "13th Junii 1649" (I, 320), the title page of George Thomason's copy of the second issue (British Museum, E.418.[11]) bears the manuscript date "Dec: 2d 1647." Thomason's acquisition of this second-issue copy is also dated "2 Dec." in the Catalogue of the Pamphlets, Books, Newspapers, and Manuscripts Relating to the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and Restoration, collected by George Thomason, 1640-1661 (1908), I, 576.
For the arguments against publication prior to 25 September 1646, see Ernest Sullivan's "The Genesis and Transmission of Donne's Biathanatos," The Library, 5th Series, 31 (1976), 63-64.
Keynes's identification of "larger paper" copies is inconsistent: "three of the presentation copies (nos. 2, 4, and 10 above) are on the larger paper, 7 5/8 x 6 in." (p. 119). J. C. T. Oates, ULC Reader in Historical Bibliography, informs me that copy (2) has 7 1/2 x 5 9/16-inch pages in the original binding (somewhat smaller than the 7 9/16 x 5 11/16-inch pages of copy [1] on ordinary paper), and its vase watermark shows clearly in my microfilm; thus, any inference from Keynes that his copy number two was specially printed on the larger paper having the bunch of grapes and/or coat of arms watermark for presentation would be incorrect. Keynes does correctly list (6), the other MH fine-paper presentation copy described in Pirie's note, as a large-paper copy in footnote 2 on page 119.
Copies (1), (3), (4), and (10) have correction (g) in the hand of the younger Donne. For the textual basis of its authority, see Sullivan's "Authoritative," pp. 272-273.
Other than those facing the verso of the cancel title page, only the following corrections fail to offset: copy (1), correction (g); (3), (e); (4), (e), (f); (8), (g); (10), (d).
Collation of a normal copy of Biathanatos runs ¶4 (*)2 π A4 A-Z4, Aa2-Dd4 Ee2, but half-sheets (*) and Ee were printed on a single sheet with one quarto skeleton-forme: the outer forme contained Ee(o) and (*)(i), and the inner, Ee(i) and (*)(o). After imposition, the sheet would have been cut in half, each half folded once, and then folded half-sheet (*) placed after sig. ¶4v for binding and folded half-sheet Ee, after sig. Dd4v.
Failure of (a) to offset on the cancel title page does not establish a terminal date for corrections in fine-paper copies: they are all first issue, and at least (5) and (6) were presented after 2 December 1647.
Jessica Owaroff, Houghton Library Reading Room Librarian, informs me that (6) has been rebound in nineteenth-century calf, so that the evidence derived from the order of its sheets is not conclusive; however, the possibility that a nineteenth-century binder erroneously placed half-sheet (*) between sigs. ¶2v and ¶3 is remote indeed.
I have not seen correction (g) in (13), but Sparrow describes the handwriting as "clearly different from that in which the corrections in the Dedication are made" (p. 30), leaving its authorship uncertain. The existence of only correction (g) in an unknown hand in (8), a presentation copy, is an anomaly. This correction (g) does not look like those made by the younger Donne: "exacted" is not crossed out, and "exalted" is written above it rather than in the margin. The need for (g) and the choice of "exalted" would not be obvious to anyone unfamiliar with the text. Perhaps someone saw this correction on other sheets or in another copy, and, recognizing the superiority of the "exalted" reading, made the correction. The correction could also derive from the manuscript sent by Donne to Lord Herbert of Cherbury and given to the Bodleian Library in 1642, but anyone comparing this manuscript with the first edition would surely have also made a great many other much more obvious corrections.
According to the OED, "writ" occurs as the past participle of "write" from the sixteenth century onward. For an explanation of the younger Donne's use of "writen" instead of "written," see Morgenstern's note.
The only letters made without size restriction and on a blank surface, the "s" in (a) and "n" in (b), appear to be in the hand of the younger Donne; however, the "e" in (b) has a much larger loop than does his usual "e" or either "e" in his "exalted" corrections. Also, the Epistle Dedicatory corrections have the new letters superimposed over the old; whereas examples of (g) in his hand have a series of short, diagonal lines through "exacted", with "exalted" written in the margin beside the obliterated "exacted".
See the Reliquiae Wottoninae, 3rd ed. (1672), p. 441 and L. P. Smith's Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton (1907), II, 465.
The marginal annotations, on the other hand, are keyed by letter to a location in the text and identify Donne's sources.
"Sert. Senen. lib. 6. Annot. 7. p. 311." is a citation of Sisto da Siena's Bibliotheca Sancta a F. Sixto Senensi (Frankfort: Nicolai Bassaei, 1575). The information actually is in "Liber sextus. Annotatio CCCXI" (sig. 3E1).
Roger E. Bennett, in "Donne's Letters to Severall Persons of Honour," PMLA, 56 (1941), first conjectured that the manuscript sent to Ker was the printer's copy (pp. 129-131).
The letter "To the Noblest knight Sr Edward Herbert" is photographically reproduced and accurately transcribed in Evelyn Simpson's A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne, 2nd ed. (1948), pages ii and 161 respectively.
He most clearly expresses these fears in the Epistle Dedicatory: "For, since the beginning of the War, my Study having been often searched, all my Books (and al-most my braines, by their continuall allarums) sequestred, for the use of the Committee; two dangers appeared more eminently to hover over this, being then a Manuscript; a danger of being utterly lost, and a danger of being utterly found; and fathered, by some of those wild Atheists . . ." (sigs. ¶3v-¶4).
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