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The Collation

“Beloveed Plays”: A Sammelband of 1680s Quartos & Its Readers

A major fringe benefit of systematically going through so many books (1,300+) at the Folger last year, looking for typographic conventions and experiments, was encountering traces of use and reading that have not been recorded in the copy-specific notes on Hamnet. Of all the books I consulted during my fellowship, B5326 (Copy 2), a sammelband of eight play quartos from the 1680s, has to be among my favorites. It’s too good not to share. Since there’s so much to say about this book and its contents, I’ll try to provide an overview here and would welcome your observations, suggestions, or corrections in the comments below.

  1. While the binding could be seen as Oxford-style, the different color panel in the middle seems to identify it more strongly as Cambridge-style. Many thanks to Caroline Duroselle-Melish, the Folger’s curator of early modern books and prints, and Aaron Pratt, assistant professor of English at Trinity University, for helping me date the binding.
  2. Could this Thomas Edwards, “Gentleman of Tanfield Hall,” be related to the Mrs. Tanfield who inscribed the book?
  3. She seems to have skipped using the number 7 entirely.
  4. If I’m reading the reference note correctly, it could be that these copies of Sophonisba, Othello, and Oedipus circulated together before they were bound in the current sammelband.
  5. such as why Thomas Betterton’s name has literally been cut out of the 1 Henry VI dramatis personæ:

    a page with a square cut out

    Thomas Betterton’s name has been cut out of the actor list in 1 Henry the Sixth.

  6. Please see editorial note at the end of the post for more.

Comments

Where you transcribe something as “188” (rather than “I88”), doesn’t that require you to decode it as “Ann” (rather than “Inn”)?

Joshua Eckhardt — September 25, 2015

Reply

Thanks for pointing this out, Josh. I agree with you that the iteration of the phrase in question on the back of the OEDIPUS quarto should be transcribed as “Ann Driffeild” (which would add yet another name to the list of names associated with this book). After looking at the iteration of this same phrase in the SOPHONISBA playbook, however, I would probably transcribe the first word as “I88” (not “188,” as I’ve done above), which would be decoded as “Inn Driffeild.” This is an attractive and viable option given the other reference to Yorkshire in the volume. I’d love other thoughts on this!

Claire M. L. Bourne — September 25, 2015

Reply

I vote for Bower too.

Joshua Eckhardt — September 25, 2015

Reply

Now think it’s definitely a . It’s always tricky, commenting on palaeographical features based on a narrow sample of a hand, but the is not only the classical shape of + (ie. the first bowl is nonexistent), but also has a little loop at the end of the last upstroke – identical with s (and also seen in her s). 🙂

Sam Kaislaniemi — September 26, 2015

Reply

..woah, ok so using angle brackets to mark graphs was a bad idea. >_< Let me repeat, sans angle brackets:

Now think it’s definitely a "w". It’s always tricky, commenting on palaeographical features based on a narrow sample of a hand, but the is not only the classical shape of "ı" + "v" (ie. the first bowl is nonexistent), but also has a little loop at the end of the last upstroke – identical with "v"s (and also seen in her "r"s).

Sam Kaislaniemi — September 26, 2015

Reply

I read it as Bower, also, though I am far from an expert. I think the letter in question looks like the shape of the “v” in “Beloved” in the same excerpt and that the fact that all of the letters in the last word are more closely packed than in the rest of the inscription may explain why the full shape of the “w” is hard to see.

Great post. Thanks, Claire.

Lara Dodds — September 28, 2015

Reply

Hi Claire, Thanks for the excellent post. I am particularly grateful for your discussion of the bindings. Wonderful stuff! The 1683 edition of /The Rehearsal/ *was* published by Bentley. I wonder if what you have here (and I have in front of me at the moment) is one of the nonce collections Bentley put together himself for sale?

Emma Depledge — April 4, 2016

Reply

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