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(1)
A disruption in the sequence of signature alphabets usually occurs only in long shared books but is not a necessary adjunct of sharing. Essays STC 18041, for example, runs through continuous alphabets although Eld printed Book 3 at 2S-3C and Simmes resumed with Book 4 at 3D. A sharing strategy based upon the division of a text into units such as books or parts or some other form of sub-heading may invite a shift in alphabets that was not necessarily implemented even in shared books. Stafford printed the title, preliminaries and part of the text (L-O2) of Part 1 of Essays STC5775 (1600), while Read(?) did Part 2 about a year later. Despite the gap in production, Parts 1 and 2 are continuously signed with the split at O2/O3. However, the two books of Treatise of Antichrist STC7120 (1603) are separately signed. Eld printed the title and preliminaries and most of Book 2 while Braddock printed Book 1. The division into three sections in An Apology STC19295 is accompanied by shifts to new alphabets which reliably indicate the general pattern of sharing. The title (with Eld's imprint), preliminaries, and Book 1 are signed ¶-E, whereas Book 2 commences with a new alphabet at [F1] running 2A-O; then the third shared section begins with a third alphabet running 3A-N4. In this instance, Eld's sharing strategy was obviously based upon the natural divisions by books and the flexibility in production schedule offered by non-sequential signing. Jaggard's machining of Book 2, in effect, was temporally independent of Eld's work on Book 1. At some point, Eld took over Book 2 after Jaggard's long stint 2A-O and began the third alphabet.
Perfectly logical sharing strategies in Elizabethan printing, however, must be held suspect until confirmed by font analysis. In each of the foregoing examples, font analysis reveals further sharing within sections: the font Creede-3 appears in B-K of STC5775 Pt. 1; Creede-4 appears in STC7120 2H-M; and Jaggard's three fonts alternate in 3H-K of STC19295. In general, no irregularity in signing occurs in short texts requiring only one alphabet,
Signature-alphabet shifts occur sometimes in a particular class of books consisting of a primary title/text and an appended secondary title/text. It is not always clear whether the two (or more) texts were intended as sections of one work or as complementary works, or were simply printed together as a matter of expediency. Eld printed the first title (with his imprint) and preliminaries of Remaines STC4521 (1604), Simmes did the first text B-2H, and Eld the second title "Certaine Poems, or Poesies, Epigrammes . . ." and text accompanied by a shift to lower-case alphabet a-h. A simultaneous shift occurs from Simmes-S1 to Eld-Y1. However, shifts also occur in other instances involving only one printer. Jaggard appended Genealogie of Vertue with a repeated alphabet 2B-K to Anatomie of Sinne STC12465.5 [old 565] (1603) which ended at I2v; Jaggard-Y1a prints both texts. Finally, the theoretical possibility should be borne in mind that a shift between quarto printing in fours and eights could occur at boundaries of shared sections. For example, this occurs in A Reformation STC3906 after sheet P where the alphabet and pagination repeat along with shifts in the pica roman and italic emphasis fonts.
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