Item 2 - Letter from F. P. Wilson to R. B. McKerrow

1 folded sheet, 1 envelope

Lincoln College, Oxford.—There is a second edition of A Wonderfull, Strange, and Miraculous … Prognostication (1598), attributed by some to Nashe, in the Bodleian.

(With an envelope.)

—————

Transcript

Lincoln College | Oxford
Nov. 20

Dear Sir,

I have recently chanced upon a copy of a second edition of “A Wonderfull, strange and miraculous . . . . Prognostication” (1591), {1} attributed by some to Thomas Nashe. I thought you might be interested to hear of this, as you do not appear to mention it in your edition of Nashe.

The copy of the second edition is in the Bodleian (the press-mark is G. Pamph. 2156). It is not catalogued under ‘Nashe’ or ‘Fouleweather’ or ‘Wonderfull’, but under ‘Astrologia’. On the title-page are the words ‘Newly corrected’. This copy is imperfect, wanting all after Sig. D1v. As far as I can see it contains no new matter up to this signature, but the text is divided into many paragraphs, and in places offers better readings than those of the first edition. In particular, you may be interested to hear, the 2nd edition substantiates several of the emendations you have introduced into the text.

If you are not already acquainted with this edition, I shall be happy to furnish you with any particulars you may desire. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you for the help which your edition of Nashe and your article in Bib. Soc. Trans. XII {2} have been to me in some work I am doing on Dekker for the Clarendon Press. {3}

Yours sincerely,
F. P. Wilson

R. B. McKerrow, Esq.

[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow, Esq., Litt. D., | 4, Phoenix Mansions, | Brook Green, | London, W.

—————

The envelope, which was postmarked at Oxford at 8 p.m. on 20 November 1914, has been marked by McKerrow ‘Nashe note’, and the postage-stamp has been torn off. This letter was formerly inserted after p. 198 of McKerrow’s annotated copy of his Works of Nashe, vol. v (Adv. c. 25. 76), though the letter relates in fact to vol. iii, p. 377, where, in his own copy, McKerrow has added the following note at the foot of the page: ‘A later ed. is in Bodleian, G. Pamph. 2156 or 215b, catalogued under ‘Astrologia’, called ‘Newly corrected.’ Impf. wanting all after D1v. (Letter fm F. P. Wilson, Lincoln Coll., Oxford. 20/11/14)’.

{1} STC (2nd ed.) 11210. The book is attributed on the title-page to ‘Adam Fouleweather, Student in Asse-tronomy’, an obvious pseudonym.

{2} ‘Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, vol. xii (1914), pp. 213–318.

{3} The Plague Pamphlets of Thomas Dekker, not published till 1925. Wilson made a similar acknowledgement in his Preface.