University of Virginia Library

The Reliability of Simmes's Compositor A
by
Alan E. Craven

For students of renaissance dramatic texts, Valentine Simmes is a particularly important printer because he produced numerous quartos, both substantive texts and reprints. Among the substantive texts which Simmes produced are Richard II (1597), Richard III (1597), A Warning for Fair Women (1599), An Humorous Day's Mirth (1599), The Shoemakers' Holiday (1600), Much Ado about Nothing (1600), Henry IV, Part 2 (1600), Sir John Oldcastle (1600), Hamlet (1603), The Malcontent (Q1 and Q3, both 1604),

Doctor Faustus (1604), The Honest Whore (1604), and The Gentleman Usher (1606). In the decade during which these quartos were printed, the work of several compositors can be distinguished; of these, Compositor A, to whom fell the principal share in setting dramatic quartos, has been the subject of most interest.[1] In an earlier study, I attempted to assess the reliability of this compositor and suggested the kinds of errors which he might have introduced into substantive texts.[2] The present investigation adds to the body of evidence on which previous estimates of A's work have been based and provides an assessment of his work in texts printed several years later than Q2 Richard II (1598), the principal text used for the earlier investigation of his work.

Two reprints in which Simmes's Compositor A had a hand provide the data for the present study. Q2 The First Part of the Contention (1600), a page for page reprint of the first quarto, was set entirely by Compositor A.[3] The other quarto, Q3 Henry IV, Part I (1604), a page for page reprint of the second quarto, was set into type by Compositor A and a second compositor.

Certain pages of Q3 Henry IV, Part I contain a number of striking compositorial characteristics, particularly the heavy use of unabbreviated speech-prefixes which are not stopped, a characteristic first used by W. Craig Ferguson to identify Compositor A's work. These pages also contain abbreviated speech-prefixes punctuated with a colon, italic names in the (roman) body of the text (the copy for Q3 containing less than two dozen instances of contrasting italic for names or foreign words, almost all of which are found in the first sheet of Q2), and speech-prefixes which are expanded from an abbreviation to the full name (and, of course, regularly unstopped), as well as certain spelling preferences. On the basis of these and other kinds of evidence, the following 16 pages in Q3 can be assigned to Compositor A: C1v, 3v, 4, D2, 2v, 3v, E1v-4, G3v, 4, I1, and K1. The remainder of the quarto—62 pages—can be assigned to Compositor B.[4] (I regard three of the pages assigned to A—E1v, G3v, and 4—and two of the pages assigned to B—H4 and K1v—as doubtful.)

The principal evidence can be summarized for the sake of convenience as follows.

Unabbreviated speech-prefixes not stopped:

Abbreviated speech-prefixes punctuated with a colon:

Contrasting italic for proper names in body (replacing roman in Q2):

Abbreviated speech-prefixes expanded to full:

Spellings of certain high-frequency words and capitalization and punctuation practices provide some corroborative support on individual pages, but the speech-prefixes and italicized names (except on the five doubtful pages) provide the surest tests for distinguishing the work of the two compositors. Certain other compositorial characteristics—for example, Compositor A's practice in some quartos of setting lower-case exits—are not found in the quarto. It should be added, however, that no patterns of evidence in the quarto raise doubts about the identity of either compositor.

Collation of a reprint and the copy from which it was set can provide an index to both the number and the particular kinds of changes to which a compositor was habitually subject. Disregarding obvious typographical errors and variants in accidentals (spelling, punctuation, and capitalization), we can record the substantive changes which Compositor A introduced into the two reprints. A substantive change always affects meaning. Although most substantive variants indicate a textual corruption, a compositor's correction of an obvious error in his copy must be regarded as substantive, whether the reading produced is right or wrong.

In the following table of variant readings between Q1 and Q2 of The Contention, set entirely by Compositor A, the first column shows the page and line number in Q2 and the second and third columns give the readings in the two editions.[6] The changes are classified as follows: substitutions, omissions, interpolations, transpositions, and corrections of obvious errors.

                           

Page/Line	QI	Q2
	Substitutions
A3.1	can reade no	can see no
A3v.3	That dares presume	That dare presume
A3v.36	I seene this	I heard this
A4.23	I meant Maine	I meane Maine
B1v.29	to rise.	to rise:
B2v.10	your petitions to	your petition to
B3.26	be old inough	be bold enough
B3v.21	spake the words,	spake these words,
B4.1	take them hence	take him hence
B4.27	Armourer should speake,	Armourer doth speake,
C1.2	But him	Yet him
C1v.1	the Earles of	the Earle of

                                                                                                     

Page/Line	Q1	Q2
C4v.33	proudest Lord of	proudest lords of
D1v.30	all the mony	all my mony
D2.2	Armour. Heres to	Arm. Here to
D3v.15	were their King.	were a King:
E1.30	my Lords, is	my lord is
E3.15	in his face,	in the face,
F1v.14	must saue thy	must haue thy
F4.5	Oh hes	Oh he has
F4v.18	that my puissance	that the puissance
G1v.25	hence forward, it	henceforth, it
G1v.33	bridge a fire,	bridge on fire:
G2.9	all things shall	al thing shal
G3.36	neckes vnder their	neckes vnto their
G3v.14	there want no	there wants no
G4.28	into my ground	into the ground
G4v.2	thou doest not hew	thou hewst not
G4v.4	turnd to hobnailes.	turnd into hobnailes.
G4v.12	sword ile honour	sword I honor
H1v.14	loyall to my	loyall vnto my
H11v.35	in dispight of	in spight of
H2.14	Why doth not	Why do not
H2.16	his baile.	his suertie.
	Omissions
A2v.15	now her speech	now speech
A3v.30	Come then let	come let
B1v.16	resolue vs of	resolue of
B2.2	good Duke Humphries	good Humphries
B2.35	take in this	take this
C1.7	plaines, then where	plaines, where
C2v.25	And yet I	And I
D1.32	My staffe, I yeeld as willing to be thine, [whole line dropped--9 words]
D2.4	of my mans	of mans
D3v.12	not how the	not the
E1v.5	That France should	That should
E2v.33	good Duke Humphreys	good Humphreys
E3.10	this thrise famous	this famous
E4.35	Come good Warwicke	Come Warwicke,
F4.29	Well, and Adam	VVell, Adam
F4v.4	And that was	And was
G1v.26	me any othervvise	me otherwise
G4v.36	And not farre	And farre
H3v.16	thee yet.	thee.
	Interpolations
B1.6	Where Kings	Where the Kings
B1v.7	from depth	from the depth
C1.24	haue notice	haue a notice
C3.35	and halt	and the halt
D3v.35	Lord, all	Lord, and all
E2.1	of Iohn	of sir Iohn
E3v.9	be still,	be ye still

                                                         

Page/Line	Q1	Q2
F2.10	doest feare	doest thou feare
F3v.16	be king,	be the King,
H1v.9	yeare to	yeere for to
	Transpositions
C1.4	water shall he	water he shall
C4v.3	as both you	as you both
C4v.30	it, will I	it. I wil
E1v.33	canst it not	canst not it
E4.24	them all for	them for all
E4.25	had I not	had not I
G2v.9	but bona, terra.	but terra bona.
G3v.26	so must it	so it must
	Corrections
B1.26	with vs vs	with vs
B2.4	cannot get	can get
B2v.2	sir what yours?	sir whats yours?
B2v.7	me, me, I	mee, I
B3v.14	the the law	the law
C1.3	fate awayt the	fate awaits the
C1.23	That your are	That you are
C1v.17	Hawke done towre	hawke doe towre
D2v.27	idle rascald follower.	idle rascall follower.
E1.32	Doth plant	Do plant
E1.33	[Line on E1, misplaced in Q1, moved in Q2 to proper position and two additional changes made]
E4v.9	As leaue fast enuy	As leane facde Enuy [two words corrected]
G1.16	Letter one againe.	letter once againe:
G3.6	and and entred	and entred
G3.23	rebellions,	rebellion,

The following substantive variants between Q1 and Q2 occur in the stage directions.[7]

                     

	Substitutions
D2.8	Alarmes, and	Alarme: and
H2.24	the Earles of	the Earle of
	Omissions
C2.21	miracle, a miracle.	myracle. [two words omitted]
D3v.2	and the Queene	and Queene,
E4.4	And then enter	And enter
F4v.37	to the battaile,	to battaile,
G1.1	Then enter Iacke	Then Iacke
G3v.21	Exet omnes.	------[two words omitted]
H2v.15	fighting, and Richard	fighting, Richard

     

Page/Line	Q1	Q2
	Interpolations
H2v.25	and enter	and then enter

The collation of the two editions of The Contention, then, yields the following results: 86 substantive variants in the dialogue and 10 in the stage directions for a total of 96 throughout the text. In the 2187 lines of the play, Compositor A thus averaged one substantive change in every 23 lines. (All line counts given in this paper are the actual number of lines of type in the quarto. When two speeches stand in the same line, the line is counted twice. Stage directions which occupy a separate line of type are counted, but the single word exit (or exeunt) has been excluded from the count. Turnovers are not counted.)

Compositor A's work in Q2 The Contention can be compared with that in the other reprint, the third quarto of Henry IV, Part I, printed four years later in 1604. Compositor A, it will be remembered, set 16 pages (C1v, 3v, 4, D2, 2v, 3v, E1v, 2, 2v, 3, 3v, 4, G3v, 4, I1, K1) of the 78-page quarto; Compositor B set the remaining 62 pages. The table below records substantive changes made by Compositor A in setting his 16 pages of Q3.[8]

                                               

Page/Line	Q2	Q3
	Substitutions
C4.8	Well, we leaue	Well, weele leaue
C4.26	ye faith.	yee yfaith.
D3v.30	matter? there be	matter? here be
E1v.34	and that sprightly	and the sprightie
E1v.37	with his pistol	with a pistol
E2v.13	growes: so youth	growes: yet youth
K1.21	triumpht vpon a	triumpht ouer a
	Omissions
C2v.25	on you all	on all
C3v.37	Prin. Sirs, you	Prince You
D3v.30	vs here haue	vs haue
D3v.31	this day morning.	this morning.
E2.14	Prin. Why then,	Prince Then
E2v.14	weares: that thou	weares: thou
E2v.15	my owne opinion	my opinion
I1.37	what with Owen	what Owen
	Interpolations
C3v.24	Fals. Hang	Fals. Go hang
G4.11	Peto. How	Peto: But how
C4.2	thou loue	thou doe loue
E2.25	how he	how how he
E2v.5	but man	but a man

     

Page/Line	Q1	Q2
	Transpositions
E2.21	art thou not	art not thou

No substantive changes between Q2 and Q3 occur in the stage directions.

In Compositor A's work in Q3, then, a total of 21 substantive changes were made in 16 pages of text, 617 lines—an average of one change in every 29 lines. The changes introduced by Compositor A in the two quartos can be summarized thus:

               

	Q2 The Contention	Q3 Henry IV, Part I
Substitutions	36 (38%)	7 (33%)
Omissions	26 (27%)	8 (38%)
Interpolations	11 (11%)	5 (24%)
Transpositions	8 (8%)	1 (5%)
Corrections	15 (16%)	0 (0%)
	---	---
	96	21

By comparison, Compositor B's work in his part of Q3 Henry IV, Part I reveals the following substantive changes.

             

Substitutions	17 (41%)
Omissions	9 (22%)
Interpolations	6 (15%)
Transpositions	o (0%)
Corrections	9 (22%)
	--
	41

Compositor B thus made 41 substantive changes in the quarto, two of which (one substitution and one omission) occur in the stage directions. These 41 changes were made in setting 2327 lines of text—an average of one change in every 57 lines. Nearly one-fourth of the changes result from attempts to correct patently corrupt readings in the copy.

Detailed comparison of the work of Compositor A with that of the other Simmes compositors lies outside the scope of this study. Yet Compositor B's work in Q3 Henry IV, Part I calls to mind preliminary estimates of the accuracy of the compositors who shared the typesetting of dramatic quartos. These estimates suggest that Compositor A was far more prone to alter copy-readings; he appears to have made about three times as many changes as Compositor S or Compositor B.[9] Additional qualitative studies of these

two compositors are needed, however, before we can speak with any degree of certainty about their accuracy.

Disregarding for our purposes the work of other Simmes compositors, let us turn our attention to the incidence of change in the work of Compositor A. His performance in the two quartos can be compared with that in another reprint, the second quarto of Richard II, 1598.[10]

               

Q2 Richard II
Substitutions	82 (59%)
Omissions	30 (21%)
Interpolations	14 (10%)
Transpositions	8 (6%)
Corrections	6 (4%)
	---
	140

Compositor A's work in the three reprints can be summarized as follows:[11]        

Edition	Lines	Changes	Rate of Change
Q2 Richard II (1598)	2628	140	19
Q2 The Contention (1600)	2187	96	23
Q3 I Henry IV (1604)	617	21	29

Although the body of evidence is drawn from only three texts, it is sufficiently broad to allow the conclusion that Compositor A in setting from printed copy was prone to making frequent substantive changes. It seems safe to assume that a compositor's accuracy in setting a reprint can provide a rough index to his accuracy in setting a substantive text and that the kinds of errors which occur in a reprint can suggest those likely to be found in the same compositor's work in a substantive text. We can infer that Compositor A probably also made frequent changes when setting from manuscript, but we should guard against the assumption that the rate of change was necessarily the same. The corruptions in the reprints cannot have resulted, in general, from misreadings of copy but, as we shall see, are for the most part memorial in origin. In setting from manuscript, he could have worked more slowly, taking less material into his head, and consequently have reproduced

his copy more accurately. On the other hand, he almost certainly would have introduced some corruptions resulting from misreading the manuscript copy, although the number of such corruptions cannot even be guessed at and probably would have varied widely from manuscript to manuscript, depending on legibility.

What has not been fully appreciated about the quarto plays printed by Simmes—at least those in which Compositor A had a hand—is that they contain numerous substantive errors. McKerrow's oft-quoted statement that Much Ado was "one of the few Shakespeare play books that was decently printed" has suggested that Simmes's dramatic quartos were also accurately printed. It is true, of course, that the quartos are generally uncluttered and neat in appearance; few turned letters, obvious misprints, or mechanical errors are evident. It has been pointed out in a discussion of Simmes's proof-correction that "when copies of Simmes books are collated, variations are seldom found, and the texts are reasonably correct."[12] But, of course, absence of textual variants proves nothing about the scope or quality of proofcorrection. Indeed, as I have tried to show elsewhere, Simmes's proof-correction appears to have been far from thorough, to have varied widely from quarto to quarto, and to have been more concerned with the appearance of the page than with textual fidelity.[13]

Because Compositor A did so often alter copy-readings in setting dramatic quartos, it is important to investigate the specific ways in which he violated the integrity of his text, as an indication of the kinds of corruption that we might expect to find in substantive editions.

SUBSTITUTIONS. Compositor A was especially prone to errors of substitution. In Q2 Richard II the percentage of substitutions is very high. It seems reasonable to suppose that A worked more rapidly when setting verse —particularly verse from printed copy—taking whole lines of material into his head rather than phrases and thus sometimes misrepresented his copy. The errors of substitution in Q2 Richard II, a text entirely in verse, suggest that Compositor A was more likely to substitute words when setting verse than when setting prose. In substantive texts set by Compositor A we should perhaps expect these verbal substitutions to occur more frequently in verse passages than in prose.

In all three reprints, whether in verse passages or prose, certain characteristic substitutions can be observed. When Compositor A substituted verbs or nouns, the substituted word was usually close enough in meaning to the original to keep the general sense of the passage, as the following examples (drawn from all three reprints) show: sayd for speake, drop for fall, see for reade, heard for seene; smoke for shocke, prison for person, slaughter for slaunder, suertie for baile. Substituted words were, however, not usually nouns and verbs, but instead were connectives and qualifiers (conjunctions,

prepositions, articles, pronouns, and, less frequently, adjectives and adverbs). The single most common type of substitution involved pronouns: one pronoun substituted for another, the for a pronoun, or a pronoun for the. Of the 82 substitutions in Q2 Richard II, 20 were of this type; in Q2 The Contention 6 of 36 substitutions involved a pronoun. In the three texts the pronouns most frequently substituted or substituted for were my and thy. In general, substitution of one word for another is likely to reflect memorial error. The frequency of substitutions suggests that Compositor A characteristically took more material into his head than he could handle.[14]

Not all of the substitutions introduced by Compositor A, of course, were memorial in origin. Some substitutions can be classified as orthographic in that they involve, usually, the addition or omission of a single letter or the transposition of two letters. Errors of this type are more likely to have resulted from misreading the copy. Final -s, as we should expect, is the letter most often added or dropped. Twenty-two of the 82 verbal substitutions in Q2 Richard II are orthographic, 12 of the 36 in Q2 The Contention, and 2 of the 7 in Q3 Henry IV, Part I. It would seem, then, that only about onefourth of the substitutions introduced by Compositor A in the reprints were caused by misreading; the great majority were probably memorial. But whatever the cause of error, readings corrupted by substitution are almost always plausible; rarely is a reading self-evidently corrupt.

OMISSIONS. Omissions of a word or words occur frequently in Compositor A's work. In two of the reprints it is the second most frequent type of error. In Q3 Henry IV, Part I the percentage of omissions is higher than that of substitutions, but the body of data is small and may be atypical. In the reprints the omitted words were usually connectives and qualifiers; pronouns thus affected were ones used adjectivally rather than as subjects or objects, and nouns and verbs were seldom omitted. The resulting readings almost never appear manifestly corrupt, although they inexactly reproduce what stood in the copy. In Q2 Richard II only one of 30 omissions produced an obviously corrupt reading, in Q2 The Contention only two of 26 omissions, and in Q3 Henry IV, Part I none of the eight omissions. In only three instances was syntax—and sense—seriously affected, twice when a noun and once when a pronoun was omitted. The faulty memory of Compositor A thus produced numerous omissions that subtly falsified his copy.

It seems reasonable to suppose that compositorial omissions occur less frequently in the setting of verse, where meter should assist the compositor. In Q2 Richard II, a play entirely in verse, the 27 omissions which occurred in the text account for 21% of the total number of text variants. The percentage of omissions in the dialogue of Q3 Henry IV, Part I is far higher—38%—probably because Compositor A in 14 of 16 pages was setting prose. Although the sample is small—only 617 lines of text—we can conclude cautiously that

Compositor A seems to have omitted words more often when setting prose than verse. Q2 The Contention is not much help in this regard since the Q1 text is memorially corrupt (a "bad" quarto); the verse is very rough in places and a good deal of prose is set as verse in the copy. It should not be forgotten that omissions in verse passages almost always affect meter. In a substantive text like Q1 Richard II, four-fifths of which was set by A, broken meter may provide a clue to a possible omission.

INTERPOLATIONS. Like omissions, interpolations are almost always memorial in origin. Because Compositor A's interpolations are usually confined to the less significant parts of speech, corruption is almost never selfevident. In the three reprints, 16 of the 30 interpolations involve one of three words: the, a, or and. It is just such interpolations that we should expect of a compositor who seemed characteristically to take more material into his head than he could deal with.

The percentage of interpolations in Compositor A's pages of Q3 Henry IV, Part I, principally prose, is unusually high. Although one cannot speak with complete assurance of the compositor's relative reliability in setting prose, it is difficult to avoid concluding that A seems to have interpolated and omitted words more frequently when setting prose but substituted words more frequently when setting verse. Like omissions, interpolations in verse almost always affect meter.

TRANSPOSITIONS. Compositor A in the three reprints was not particularly prone to errors of transposition. The percentage of transpositions is remarkably similar in the three texts. Transpositions often involved a pronoun—6 of 8 in Q2 The Contention, 5 of 8 in Q2 Richard II, and 1 of 1 in Q3 Henry IV, Part I. In many of these instances the words transposed were pronoun and verb (or the reverse). All transpositions produce readings that make reasonably good sense.

CORRECTIONS OF OBVIOUS ERRORS. Although Compositor A frequently falsified his text by introducing inadvertent errors, he rarely corrected unsatisfactory readings in his text. In only one of the three reprints is a significant number of corrections to be found, Q2 The Contention. In addition to the 15 instances in which he corrected obvious errors, he also corrected faulty Latin in stage directions on 21 occasions, although none of these changes has been included in the statistics.

Analysis of the three reprints set wholly or in part by Compositor A suggests that his substantative texts were affected by frequent errors of omission and substitution which resulted in plausible but unauthoritative readings. The only effective check against Compositor A's characteristic errors would have been regular and careful consultation of copy by a proofreader, but all of the available evidence suggests that Simmes's proofreading was superficial and desultory. The specific information about this compositor—his reliability and his characteristic types of errors—has important implications for editors of Simmes's plays. Unquestionably, the dramatic quartos set by Compositor A present a less satisfactory reproduction of what stood in the copy than has hitherto been supposed.

APPENDIX I

Linguistic Variants in The Contention, Q2

                     

Page/Line	QI	Q2
B2.19	hath stole away	hath stolne away
B2v.11	get you gone	get ye gone
B4v.12	Wherein is writ	Wherein s writ
E1v.15	fortune against those	fortune gainst those
E2.23	hees dead	he is dead
E2v.15	in thine eye-bals	in thy eie-balls
E3v.25	selfe was borne	selfe wast borne
F2v.22	kist thy hand	kist thine hand
F3v.3	am honourably borne.	am honorable borne.
G4v.26	What comes thou	What comest thou

There are, in addition, twenty-nine instances in Q2 of the interjection I (i.e., aye) having been changed to yea.

APPENDIX II

Linguistic Variants in I Henry IV, Q3 (A's pages)

                     

Page/Line	Q2	Q3
C3v.34	lie, ye rogue	lie you rogue
D2v.6	Five yeere, berlady	Five yeeres, berlady
D2v.24	Frances, a Thursday	Frances, on thurseday:
D3v.27	All is one	All's one
E2.14	then, it is	Then tis
E2.18	thou horrible afeard?	thou horribly afeard?
E2.36	my eyes	mine eyes
E2v.17	here lies the	heere lieth the
E2v.34	hee deceiueth me.	he deceiues me.
I1.16	shall mine vnkle	shall my vnckle

Notes