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A REFERENCE NOTATION
The reference notation used in the description of Folio copies is the standard collational formula. The formula has evolved since W W Greg’s time, largely through the work of Charlton Hinman and Peter Blayney. Greg’s formula was as follows:
A6(A1+1) [B]2; A-Bb^ Cc^; a-g^ gg^ h-v^ x^; [1, 2]
55^ 5551 aa-ff^ gg2 Gg6 hh^ kk-bbb^. (Greg, First Folio, 436)^
Hinman modified Greg’s formula in four ways. One of these, the use of % 1,2 to signify the two non-conjugate leaves just before signature 5, was made obsolete by one of Blayney’s changes. (It was item (c), omitted in the following quotation.) The three other changes were:
(a) superscript it’s are used with the designators for the preliminary signatures A and [B] in order to . . . distinguish them from the two signatures, also A and B, which begin the text proper. . . ; (b) the gathering of eight leaves that is signed ‘gg’ is given a superscript^ because this signature . . . requires differentiation from the other gg signature, from the ‘gg^’ that follows ‘aa-ff^’ . . . ; and (d) the formula for the signatures 5^ and is *5-55^’ ( . . . a standard condensation). (Hinman, i, 30)
Thus Hinman’s formula, which includes the format (2°), was as follows: 20 JT^6 (^A l+1) pB ]2; A-Bb^ Cc^; a-g^-^gg^ h-v^x^;% l,2 5*55^ 5551 aa-ff^ gg2 Gg^ hh^ kk-bbb^. (Hinman, i, 30)
' There are a number of differences between this version of Greg’s formula and the version in his A Bibliography o f the English PrintedDratna to the Restoration, 4 vols (1939-59), I I I , 1109, but all have to
do with the signing or punctuation marks he uses (eg, italic rather than square brackets for an inferred signature and no semi-colons) rather than a different interpretation of how the book was printed or made-up.
Peter Blayney has introduced two principal changes to Hinman’s formula. (Some readers may find it helpful to refer to Appendix M 1, the ‘roadmap’ to the preliminaries, if they happen not have a Folio to hand.) The first has to do with the order of the preliminaries. What Greg had designated [B]2 and Hinman pB ]2, Blayney designates (^A5+l:2). The fact that the order is not uniform in all copies had been noted for a long time. In the early years of this century, for example, Lee drew attention to the fact in his Census (copies 14, 33, 84, 115) ; Greg addressed the subject in 1903 and Pollard in 1909;^ and George Watson Cole made a comparative study of a number of copies in 1908.^ Fredson Bowers summarised the state of play in 1949: ‘The ideal order of the preliminaries. . . has never been e s ta b lis h e d .A fte r this, Greg again considered their order and so did Hinman.^ Peter Blayney’s departure from Greg and Hinman first occurred as far as I am aware in his unpublished descriptions of Lee 148/West 175 in 1989 and of the University of Nebraska Folio (West 154) in 1991.*^ His arguments are repeated in his ‘Notes on the First Folio collation and variants’:
Hinman, following Greg . . . assumed that the unsigned preliminaiy bifolium containing the verses by L. Digges and I. M. and the list of actors was intended to follow ^A6 (Catalogue, verso blank). He therefore designated that bifolium f^B]2, and reproduced it after ^A6 in the Norton Facsimile.
The very fact that the bifolium is unsigned makes that suggestion rather unlikely, because if Jaggard had intended it to follow a gathering signed ‘A ’ he would surely have signed it ‘B’. The contents logically belong before the Catalogue (the verses belong with those on ^A4-5, and the Catalogue should immediately precede the text), and the titlepage has a stub between ^A 5 and ^A 6 on to which the bifolium can conveniently be tipped. Furthermore, the bifolium is actually found before the Catalogue in most of die best-preserved copies (including those in original bindings) whose preliminaries seem to be original.
The two leaves that Hinman referred to as PB]1 and P B ]2 (pp. 15-18) in the [1968] Norton facsimile are now called ^A 5+l and ^A5-k2 respectively, and should be reproduced before ^A6 (Norton pp. 13-14), rather than as in the facsimile.^
^ W W Greg, comp. Catalogue o f the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library o f Trinity College in Cambridge (Cambridge, 1903), 116-17, and Pollard, 1909, 137-40.
^ ‘The First Folio of Shakespeare: A Further Word Regarding the Correct Arrangement of Its Prehminary Leaves’, reprinted with corrections, from the Proceedings and Papers o f the Bibliographical Society o f America, 3 (1908), 65-83 (New York, 1909). On pp 73-74 Cole presents the order given in Lowndes’s
Bibliographer’s Manual (Bohn edition) and gives his logic as to why he considers this order correct’. It is the same as the order desaibed by Peter Blayney below.
"^Principles o f Bibliographical Description (Princeton, NJ, 1949), 75.
^ Greg, First Folio, 449-51, anABibliography o f English Printed Drama,I I I , 1111; Hinman, 1,32.
^ ‘Report on a Set of the Four Folios of Shakespeare [the Garden set]’ (Unpublished, July, 1989) and The Nebraska First Folio’ (Unpublished, 1991).
^ Peter W M Blayney, ‘Notes on the First Folio collation and variants’ (Unpublished), 1, prepared for Peter Donaldson of MIT concerning ‘which variant pages had been photographed for his [Digital Facsimile] project and why’ (Letter from Peter Blayney to me, 2 May 1996).
rThe square brackets [ ] used by Greg and Hinman have been dropped; now that the leaves . in question have signatures showing their position in the volume, there is no^ need for 3 inference.®
Blayney’s other major change to Hinman’s formula replaces Hinman’s %1,2 with ‘gg3:4’(± ‘gg3’):
Greg and Hinman both assumed that no copies of the Folio were issued until both Troilus and Cressida and its Prologue had been supplied. Were that the case, then it would be bibliographically correct to follow Hinman in calling the first two unsigned leaves of Troilus '%1,2’.
Butas I have shown {The First Folio o f Shakespeare, 24), the first copies to be sold with Troilus present at all were issuW before the Prologue was printed. In those copies the fact that the first two leaves were originally printed for the Tragedies is more than a mere historical curiosity—because in a copy of the second issue Troilus begins with a bifolium whose first page is actually signed ‘gg3’, and therefore collates ‘gg3:4’ 351.
Although the Prologue leaf that defines the third issue is unsigned, therefore, its status is that of a cancel for ‘gg3’ that had once been part of the book as published— so convention requires the formula for Troilus to be rendered as ‘gg3:4’(±‘gg3’) 5-
55^ 3 5 1. The leaves that Hinman called x 1 and %2 (Norton, pp. 587-90) should
therefore be referred to as +‘gg3’ and ‘gg4’ respectively. ( ‘Collation and Variants’, 1-2)
As Bowers says, single quotation marks are used ‘to indicate that the signature is anomalous in the gathering’.’
In addition to these major changes, Blayney has also introduced a standard condensation that Hinman did not use: 35 in place of
555;
3b in place of bbb. He has retained the semicolon to indicate the end of sections and the colon between leaves to indicate conjugacy (^A5+l:2). Thus, the formula is:20; ^A6(^A1+1, ^A5-f-l:2); A-Bb^ Cc^; a-g^ ^gg^ h-v^ x^; ‘gg3:4’(±‘gg3’)
5-
55^ 351 aa-ff^ gg2 Gg^ hh^ kk-3b^. (‘Collation and Variants’, 1)
For references to the First Folio I use this formula. I use square brackets [ ] to indicate inferred pagination for references to end-papers and binder’s leaves, and also in Appendix M 1 to indicate inferred pagination in the Norton Facsitnile. I use superscripts and to refer respectively to the recto and verso of a leaf, and reserve ‘a’ and ‘b’ for referring respectively to the left and right columns. To avoid any possible ambiguity, the sign for recto is never omitted even though its omission is common in bibliographical writing.
* Bowers, Principles, covers tlie use of square brackets on pp 202-03 and 458.
’ Ibid, 459. Bowers also covers quotation marks on p 238. I consulted Professor Richard Proudfoot concerning the collational formula and would like to acknowledge with gratitude his helpful comments.
B C R O SS-R EFE R E N C E TABLES: PR ELIM IN A R IES AND T E X T
A number of factors combine to make orientating oneself in the First Folio difficult. These include the make-up of the volume; the order of printing; irregularities of the original quires; errors in signature references and pagination, or their absence; variation among scholars in the reference notation used; the different modes of referring to elements of the volume; and the difficulty of cross-referencing between these modes. Any of these can cause confusion, even to an experienced bibliographer. To help the reader, two roadmaps are provided.
The first roadmap. Appendix M 1, charts the P relim in aries. In the original they are not paginated, and as indicated above do not always occur in the same order. The first page of The Tempest is included in the table to anchor the last page of the preliminaries. Column 1 gives the through-pagination from the Norton Facsimile. Because I have shifted the position of what is now designated jf^A5+l:2j/, this pagination is not sequential. Column 2 shows the pages that are signed in the original. Column 3 gives the reference notation for each page. Column 4 indicates blank pages and pages with text; for the latter, to aid identification, the beginning of the text is quoted in each case.
The second roadm ap,A ppendix M 2, covers the T e x t. Column 1 gives the through- pagination from the Norton Facsimile. Column 2 shows both the headings for the three sections of the book (Comedies, Histories, Tragedies) and the titles of individual plays. Column 3 gives the signatures (that is, of an ‘ideal’ copy; there are misprints in the signatures). Column4 presents the original’s pagination; this is in three series, one each for the Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. There are numerous errors and seventeen known Vciriants in the pagination. The principal anomalies and blank pages are shown in column 5. It must always be borne in mind that any one copy will exhibit its own unique combination of variations.
C M EA SU R EM EN TS
The descriptions include two measurements—in millimetres. The measurements are to the nearest millimetre. One can compare how Lee took his measurements by referring to his questionnaire, page 3, item V, in Chapter 4, Appendix S I .
The first measurement, which is the first item under ‘Text’, is of the overall size of the leaf, and is given thus: ‘326 x 213 mm’. For this measurement, AI is normally used. The apparent precision of the measurement must be interpreted with much caution, especially the horizontal measure. This is taken on the top- or bottom-edge, from the centre of the
fore-edge to the point where the paper meets the binding (usually the head or tail band or, if it is exposed, the back-edge of the paper). Variation can occur if the fore-edge is concave and/or untrimmed; it can also occur according to the nature of the binding. It is possible to state what an original bifolium sheet actually measured. When Folger 49 was dismantled for the 1991 Folger First Folio Exhibition, Peter Blayney measured the gutter margin to the inner rule of several quires of its leaves, taking an average of the dimensions at the top and bottom of each sheet; he then measured in Folger 1, which is hardly trimmed with most of the deckle edge remaining, from the same rule to the fore-edge. With the two measurements added together, the total width of a bifolium turned out to be 444.5 mm. Thus the maximum width of a leaf, including the portion sewn into the binding, is 222.25 mm. Allowing for this obscured portion, one can use this figure as a standard to estimate the degree to which the fore-edges of copies have been trimmed.
The vertical measure is taken above, ie, centred on, the rule which separates the columns. The vertical measure is more exact, though a leaf can vary in height from fore- edge to back-edge, and there may be variation in the size of the leaves throughout the volume. Of course, if the top- and bottom-edges of the volume were trimmed at the last binding, the vertical measure is likely to be exact throughout, save for exceptionally short leaves. Where the size of one or a few leaves varies significantly from the norm in a volume, this is generally noted.
The second measurement, which is the first or second item under ‘Binding’, is of the binding, thus: ‘338 x 223 mm’. The vertical measure can be taken to be exact. The horizontal measure is approximate. It is normally taken from the fore-edge of the binding to the line where the binding hinges—the joint-thus omitting the curvature of the spine and the raised bands (if any) on the spine.“
D TH E MODEL
The term ‘model’, referring to the form into which it is anticipated the descriptions of all First Folios will fit, is a convenient single word to embrace: subjects covered; overall organisation of a description; and the titles, scope, content and formats of the parts which make up a description. The model has been developed with a view to ensuring that the descriptions meet the needs of bibliographers, textual scholars, historians of the book, librarians and book-collectors. Two subjects are privileged—the text and provenance. The intention is to mention everything which affects the text and to include, or if more appropriate make reference to, all available information concerning provenance. The
" When I began to describe Folios, I took the horizontal measurement including, by eye, the curvature (rf the spine. The descriptions of the Japanese copies in Chapter 3 contain this measurement.
design of the model takes primary account of the user’s needs. At the same time it has to be able to accept the varying types and amounts of information that copies with vastly different histories offer. It has evolved over nearly a decade; it may need to evolve further if it is to fulfil the vision of accommodating the descriptions of all extant First Folios.
Folios presenting as wide a range of descriptive problems as possible have been consulted in an attempt to perfect the model. For example, among the UK copies described in Chapters, there are perhaps as many as six with all text leaves (Sir John Soane, the two copies in Senate House, Dr Williams, one or maybe two of the copies in Stratford), two which are relatively unrefurbished and in poor condition (Dulwich College and the Wheler copy in Stratford) and one unrefurbished copy in good condition (Dr Williams). In the process of developing the model, I have leafed through the following Folios: in the UK, the nine copies described in Chapter 3, the copies at Oriel College, Queen’s College and Wadham College, Oxford, and the copy in Winchester; in Ireland, the copy in Dublin; in the USA, Folger 80-82 (described in Chapter 5), one of the copies at Harvard (West 150), one of the copies in Ohio (West 174), the two copies in the Sutro Library in San Francisco and two o f the copies in the Huntington (West 52 and 53); and in Japan, Meisei 1, 6, 7, 10 and 11, described in Chapter 3. Many other copies, though not leafed through, have been examined, including others at the Folger and all at Meisei University.
Table A
Model for Describing First Folios Heading of Copy Description:
West and Lee reference numbers (and Folger or Meisei numbers)
Owner (or keeper) and address
General and Special Comments (including a summary comment on condition of the leaves) Collation:
Preliminaries Text
Press-variants and States Provenance: Data Addenda Owners References Binding Other
The remaining sections of this chapter describe the scope and content of each element of the model.
Items appearing in the descriptions between angled brackets < > are quotations from the entry for the same copy in Lee’s Census.
E H EA D IN G O F COPY D ESC R IPTIO N
Each copy has a new reference number taken from the new Census in Chapter 7, and conspicuously presented in the margin. Lee’s copy number together with his class assignment follow in square brackets, thus: ‘[Lee 57—Class IIB]’. For ease of reading, especially of the higher numbers, arabic numerals replace Lee’s roman numerals. The complete headings(^T^uding ^ fin itio n s ^ f Lee’s classe^^e given in full in Chapter 6,
Section A, below. He describes how he assigned copies to his classes on the first page of his Census (19).
If a volume is not in Lee, it is noted thus: ‘[Non-Lee]’. If it is not known whether a copy is or is not one of those in Lee, it is labelled ‘[Non-Lee?]’. If the volume is one of the fourteen copies numbered and described in Lee, 1906, it is referred to as follows: ‘Lee+’, followed by the appropriate number, eg: ‘[Lee+l]’. If the volume is first mentioned by Lee in his 1924 article, the cue-title is given followed by the page number: ‘[Lee, 1924, 101]’. For Folger and Meisei copies, their copy number appears. The owner’s (or keeper’s) name and address follow the copy reference numbers—for the first copy only if there is more than one at the same location.
F G E N ER A L AND SPECIA L COM M ENTS
This section is a quick introduction to the copy. Its coverage varies according to the characteristics of the copy. It gives selected key points—eg, an overall comment on the condition of the text, something notable in the copy’s history, a famous earlier owner, marginalia of interest, the fact that the copy is part of a set of the four seventeenth-century Folios. It might pull out generalisations from the minutiae of the description. It can help a reader to identify a particular volume or to find a volume with a particular characteristic (eg, unimpaired text, complete text). It concludes with a count of original leaves, both preliminary and text.
G C O LLA TIO N
P re lim in a rie s The end-papers and binder’s leaves, which appear before ^A1 and after 3b6, are all of course supplied by the binder, and in terms of the make-up of a volume could logically be covered under ‘Binding’. However, for ease of reference, they are treated as follows.
First, they are referred to by small roman numerals in square brackets (assuming they are unpaged), thus: ‘[i], [ii], [iii]’, etc. The recto of [i]-the lining-paper—can be assumed
Lee and many others use the term flyleaf to refer to ^ A l. Strictly speaking, this is not correct, for the verso of ^A1 has Ben Jonson’s verse printed upon it: and‘by dicti(»iary definition, a flyleaf is an unprinted leaf at the beginning or end of a book’ (Bowers, Principles, 377-78). The First Folio has no flyleaves,