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(The Clarendon Press, Oxford?)—Maas is particularly interested in the considerations which lead an editor of Shakespeare to follow the copy-text.

(For the date and the identification of the correspondents cf. 1/87, which was probably typed with the same typewriter (note especially the capital ‘K’).)

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Transcript

Maas is, of course, not a Shakespearian scholar and knows nothing of “bibliography”. But he has an acute mind for any inconsistency, and tireless industry. He has made some excellent criticisms on McKerrow’s proofs and Introduction to Richard III. The point which really interests him is one in which I refuse to become enmeshed i.e. the basic considerations which lead a Shakespearian editor to stick to the copy-text. Exactly when does he alter the copy-text? Under what conditions does McKerrow discuss in notes {1} the variant readings of the Quarto? On all these points he thinks there is a lack of clear statement and consistent practice in the proofs. The first issue—the different approach to the text of the modern school of Shakespearians—is the one he would like to discuss with you some day; because he is interested in the general principles of textual criticism, and the extent to which they can be applied outside the classics.

[Typed in the margin:] x except the critical introduction {2}

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Typed.

{1} The three lines from ‘enmeshed’ to ‘notes’ have been marked with a pencil line in the margin.

{2} The initial 'x' is raised above the line. These words apparently refer to something in the next paragraph, of which only the top of a superior ‘x’ can be seen.

The Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Maas was pleased with Greg’s comments on McKerrow’s Prolegomena and suggests he read Housman’s Manilius.

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Transcript

The Clarendon Press, Oxford
11 November, 1940.

Please quote 4641/K.S.

My dear Greg,

Maas, who is very keen on the theory of textual criticism, was greatly pleased with your comments on McKerrow’s Prolegomena, and will later on offer some comments on the points at issue. He asked whether you had Housman’s Manilius Vol. I because sections IV and V challenge the sacredness of the copytext. This caused me to read Housman’s Introduction, which I began with great pleasure in his wit and brilliance, but ended with distaste because of his ill-concealed malevolence, which is not often found in great scholars.

Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Sisam

Dr. W. W. Greg.

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Typed, except the signature and a comma.

{1} Paul Maas, the German classical scholar and Byzantinist, was the author of an influential work on textual criticism first published in German as Textkritik (Taubner: Leipzig and Berlin, 1927), when it formed Part VII of Gercke-Norden’s Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. I. An English translation by Barbara Flower was published in 1958 under the title Textual Criticism. When Maas fled Nazi Germany in 1939 Sisam arranged for a post to be created for him at the Clarendon Press. He was briefly interned on the Isle of Man in the summer of 1940 (ODNB), but evidently returned to the OUP shortly afterwards.

‘As from’ 21 Beaumont Street, Oxford.—Discusses the first part of his review of Greg's Editorial Problem in Shakespeare.

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Transcript

As from 21 Beaumont Str., Oxford,
25/1/44

Dear Dr. Greg,

I am glad to see from your letter of 13.1., that you are not too much displeased by part I of my review {1}, and I hope the proofs of part II (sent to you, unfortunately and against my explicit instructions, in an uncorrected state [Footnote: ‘You need not me to emend Ashby into Aspley.']) will explain some of the points which seemed doubtful to you at first sight. Certainly you will have realized that I do not treat substantive variants (i.e. variants of substantive witnesses) as all equally available if intrinsically acceptable. ‘Probability of error’ (which includes most of what you call ‘bibliography’) I have always treated as an important criterion, though as one of secondary importance only. You will find more about it in my ‘Textkritik’ (1927), which is to a considerable degree independent of the language of the texts concerned there.

You rightly object to the words ‘a variant in a conflated text being proved to be substantive’. But I do not remember having used it†. What I wanted to point out is this: if in a text b which is mainly derivative (as compared with a), one reading is proved to be substantive (i.e. not derived from a), then every variant of b from a becomes potentially substantive, and must be examined just as if b were substantive in its own right, so that the distinction between sporadic and pervasive conflation becomes useless. That the agreement of a purely substantive witness with a conflated one has quite a different character from the agreement of two purely substantive witnesses I never denied (cf. my notes on Rich. III in R.E.S. 1942). What I criticised is only the classification of witnesses according to their higher or lesser degree of conflation or authority. Not even the fact that F has reprinted or rejected a text does, in my eyes, constitute a class-character.

I confess to having no idea what kind of witness the common source of Q1 and Q4 of R. and J. was if there was any common source. But I do think the subject requires a new treatment, since Tycho Mommsen’s parallel, the ‘Perkins Folio’, has gone, and the later editors have as far as I see completely failed to see the problem.

I am writing this from London where I had to stay for some days; so please excuse the bad ink and the worse style. There will be I am afraid more discussion about part II of my review, and I am at your disposal for any further explanation you shoud† want from me. I shall be especially grateful for your criticism of the conjecture in my Postscript.

With my best thanks for your kind letter

I remain sincerely yours
P. Maas.

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Written in purple ink.

{1} The first part of Maas’s review of The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare, printed in the October 1943 issue of the Review of English Studies. The second part appeared the following January. Cf. GREG 2/2, pp. 92–4.

† Sic.

21 Beaumont Street, Oxford.—Comments on the second part of his review of Greg's Editorial Problem in Shakespeare.

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Transcript

21 Beaumont St., Oxford, 22. 3. 44.

Dear Dr. Greg,

Our last letters are both of 25. 1., therefore they crossed. I delayed my answer, because I expected the revised proofs {1}. After having waited in vain for a month I cycled to Long Wittenham, only to hear that the revised proofs had been sent to the printer without my Imprimatur. I tried to get at least the obvious mistake ‘printer’ for ‘publisher’ in the last note rectified {2}. This too failed. I am now told that the correction will be executed in a second and more presentable set of offprints of part I + II of my review. Vedremmo.

Thus I must apologize for having exaggerated your agreement with Shaaber; I had confused ‘persuasively’ with ‘convincingly’. I am less sure that I was wrong in interpreting the colophon of F as a kind of signature. Cannot the difference between the colophon and the title page correspond to a change in the ownership? I have not seen any discussion of the subject posterior to 1924.

With many thanks for your kind remarks

Yours sincerely
P. Maas.

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{1} The proofs of the second part of Maas’s review of Greg’s Editorial Problem in Shakespeare for the Review of English Studies, printed in the January 1944 issue.

{2} Greg corrected the mistake in his own copy of the review. See GREG 2/2, p. 94.