Item 55 - Letter from James G. McManaway to W. W. Greg

2 single sheets

Office of the Director, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington.—Discusses the proofs of Greg’s Variants in the First Quarto of ‘King Lear’.

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Transcript

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington Office of the Director
December 6, 1939

Dear Dr. Greg:

My heart leapt up when I beheld your handwriting on a parcel of proofs, for I hoped that you had resumed work on the Bibliography. We have speculated more than once on the fate of the bibliography, now that rare books are stored in places of safety. If there is probability that they will remain long in storage, could you transfer your notes to America and continue your work here?

Although I must confess to having had a momentary feeling of disappointment, I am almost overwhelmed with admiration for the ingenuity and cogency of your explanation of the phenomena of the Pide Bull Lear. Except for the tabulations, I have read the proofs with the keenest pleasure. There has been no time for reflection, but I doubt if it is possible to adduce any evidence that might lead me to reject your conclusions.

Meanwhile, however, perhaps I can send you one or two bits of information in time for you to use them. In the supplementary volume issued in 1871 to conclude the series of Ashbee facsimiles (A Collection of Lithograpic Facsimiles of the Early Quarto Editions of the Separate Works of Shakespeare: . . . in forty-eight volumes), Halliwell-Phillips writes as follows (Preface, pp. 6–7):

". . . Different copies also vary considerably in {1} the sharpness or illegibility of the impressions; while few accidents are more common than the dropping of letters and points out of the formes, or the erroneous reversals of letters. In all these minute circumstances, different copies of the same edition will show numerous variations.

"The above remarks apply, of course, only to minute points, in which the difficulties are to be ascribed solely to the carelessness of the early printers. A far wider and more important series of questions arises from the singular circumstance that it was the custom of all the printers of these dramas to keep the texts in formes, printing a few copies at a time, and perpetually altering and correcting the text as each impression was required. In consequence of this practice, there are few copies, even of the same editions, which do not exhibit various readings. In one instance, that of the Pyde Bull edition of King Lear, 1608, no two copies have yet been found which agree with each other. {2} Our facsimile of course, therefore, cannot pretend to include every reading, a feat which could only be accomplished by giving facsimiles of all the twelve known copies; and an attempt to carry out such a design would have been impracticable with the means at our disposal, nor would the result be commensurate with the vast expense." {3}

The facsimile itself, Number Fourteen of the surviving 31 copies as attested on a fly leaf by Ashbee and Halliwell-Phillips, is dated 1868 and has no prefatory matter whatever. {4} In volume 14 of H.-P.’s edition of Shakespeare, I find the following passage: {5} “It has been generally stated that there were three distinct impressions of the date of 1608, but a careful examination of every available copy has convinced me that this is not the case. It has, however, elicited the singular fact that while all the copies of the second impression of 1608 exactly correspond, {6} no two copies of the first [i.e. Pide Bull] have yet been found which contain precisely the same text, alt-hough evidently printed from one set of forms. It appears that the forms used for the first impression were kept standing, and that alterations were made upon the printing of each small issue of copies.” (p. 363). [This vol. is dated 1865 {7}.] {8}

I am sending this by air mail to save time, with due propitiatory offerings to Mercury, Zephy-rus and what other deities may be interested in its swift delivery.

The proofs shall go at once to Bowers, who is at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Sincerely yours,
James G. McManaway

P.S. At the time I checked the running titles, I gave little thought to the number of presses used by Okes and hope that I didn’t actually commit myself on paper.

Please excuse the messy appearance of this letter—it was typed post haste, and there was no time for re-copying.

Dr. W. W. Greg
Jollycot
71 Pagham Beach
Bognor, Sussex
England

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Typed, except the signature, the second paragraph of the postscript, and a few corrections. Greg’s additions are all handwritten. The square brackets are all in the original.

{1} Followed by two vertical lines and ‘begin page 7 here’, in pencil.

{2} There is a pencil line in the margin by this sentence and the first part of the next.

{3} The double inverted commas in this paragraph and the preceding one have been supplied.

{4} There is a pencil asterisk in the margin, probably referring to this sentence.

{5} The beginning of the quotation has been marked with a horizontal line in the margin, in pencil.

{6} These two words have been underlined by Greg and marked ‘not q. true’ in the margin, in pencil.

{7} Date underlined in pencil and marked with a cross in the margin.

{8} The information in this paragraph was incorporated in the ‘postscript’ to Greg’s Variants (p. 190).

Formerly inserted in Greg's copy of The Variants in the First Quarto of ‘King Lear’ (1940) (V. 10. 64).

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.