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I would like to thank my colleague Prof. Dr. V. Doyen (K. U. Leuven) for reading over the final version of this paper.
H. De Vocht, "In memoriam W. Bang Kaup." In Ben Jonson's Seianus. His Fall. Materials for the Study of the Old English Drama, 11. Louvain, 1935, p. X.
Bernard Alfred Quaritch died in 1913 (F. Boase, Modern English Biography. London, 1965, vol. VI, col. 443).
Greg, librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1907 to 1913, became general editor for the Malone Society and in 1939 its president. McKerrow became a director of the firm Sidgwick & Jackson in 1908 and was from 1912 onwards joint secretary of the Bibliographical society with A. W. Pollard. Greg provides a summary of McKerrow's career in his memorial tribute "Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, 1872-1940," Proceedings of the British Academy 26 (1940): 488-515. F. P. Wilson does the same for Greg in "Sir Walter Wilson Greg, 1875-1959," Proceedings of the British Academy 45 (1959): 307-334.
About Bang's letters to Greg and McKerrow I made unsuccessful inquiries in the British Library, the National Register of Archives (London), Trinity College (Cambridge), and the University of Southampton.
Greg, "Old Plays and New Editions. Notes on the methods of dealing in modern texts with the orthography, punctuation, typographcal peculiarities, stage directions, etc., of early editions," The Library. A Quarterly Review of Bibliography and Library Lore n.s. 3 (1902): 408-426.
Actually the three plays were issued in 1907 in a modernized edition by John S. Farmer, and in the same year they were reproduced in the Tudor Facsimile Texts (H. De Vocht, Professor Willy Bang and his Work in English Philology. Materials for the Study of the Old English Drama, 25. Louvain, 1958, p. 100). A Newe Interlude of Impacyente Pouerte was edited in the Materialien by R. B. McKerrow (1911). The Interlude of John the Evangelist (prepared by W. W. Greg and checked by Arundell Esdaile, 1907) and The Interlude of Wealth and Health (prepared by W. W. Greg and checked by Percy Simpson, 1907) both appeared in the Malone Society Reprints.
Pollard's career, including his work as a librarian in the British Museum and as Secretary of the Bibliographical Society, is summarized in J. Dover Wilson's account "Alfred William Pollard, 1859-1944," Proceedings of the British Academy 31 (1945): 256-306.
On the editorial principles of the Malone Society and a comparison between the Materialien and the Malone Society Reprints, see De Vocht, Professor Willy Bang and his Work in English Philology, pp. 98-106. De Vocht also points out that besides the Malone Society there were other--though less important--imitations of Bang's series.
Everyman (ed. Greg) in 1909 and 1910; A Newe Interlude of Impacyente Pouerte from the quarto of 1560 (ed. McKerrow) in 1911.
University Library Louvain, archives W. Bang (P56). Letter written in ink on the four pages (11.3 x 17.5 cm) of a folded sheet.
To this letter a leaflet is attached on which Bang wrote (in pencil)
some remarks, numbered 3-4-5 (in
reverse order); two other remarks must have preceded. I give the remarks in the correct order,
exactly as they are
written (dots and deleted letters or words included):
- 3) If you . . . . . bibliophiles, the result of your work will again be lost from a sc. point of view as only [some canceled] very few libraries and [indivi canceled] scholars will be able to subscribe to. . . . .
- 4) The history of former Societies (Sh.--[Soc. canceled] Percy--Spens. Soc) ought to teach us [that their li canceled] that societies founded on too small a scale are never long-lived because the circle of persons interested in their publications is too restreint [sic]
- 5) I am moreover afraid that sooner or later there will ineviatably [sic] arise (Gründe) für Reibereien [(grounds) for friction], which I for one would deeply deplore.
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