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1. Letter from A. W. Pollard to W. Bang [14]
July 15th 1906.
Mr. Greg has told me of your letter to him concerning the projected English Dramatic Text Society & as I think I have corresponded with you before, I am bold enough to wish to confess that if there is any criminality in trying to form such a Society I am the main culprit. I want also to say that if there is any method open to us of showing respect for the work you have accomplished, or of diminishing competition, or of helping the sale of the texts you have already published, it will be a real pleasure to me, & I am sure to others also, to do the utmost we can in this direction without sacrificing our own freedom to bring out English Editions of any texts we think are wanted, & to enlist the aid of the best English workers available for this purpose. To be quite frank, I will own that if it had not been for Messrs. Farmer & Gibbings and their Early English Drama Society I should not have been so keen as I am in this matter. But I am sure that you will yourself see how galling it is to anyone who cares for the honour of English scholarship to allow it to be said that work like Mr. Farmer's [is canceled] finds a ready success in England, while genuine scholars like Mr. Greg and Mr McKerrow have to take their work abroad to find print & paper. There is also the further point that we are so used in England to doing this kind of work by means of Societies that I am quite sure that we can enlist the interest of scores of people in these studies whom it would be quite impossible for you to reach, however much you spent on advertising. It may even be that the interest we shall arouse will react favourably on your own venture & get you new subscribers. As for the larger plan which you suggest, that of forming a Tudor & Stuart Text Society I am immensely taken with it, but the difficulty in finding Editors to work it would be very great. It is [im canceled] possible that our present plan might take on [next word interlined] ultimately this larger form, but if we decide to begin with the dramatic texts I hope you won't take the decision as in any sense a mark of personal hostility to yourself.
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