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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0294  Thursday, 15 May 2008

[1] 	From:	John Briggs <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com>
	Date:	Wednesday, 14 May 2008 17:59:17 +0100
	Subj:	Re: SHK 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets

[2] 	From: 	Hardy M. Cook <editor@shaksper.net>
	Date: 	Thursday, May 15, 2008
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:		John Briggs <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com>
Date:		Wednesday, 14 May 2008 17:59:17 +0100
Subject: 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets
Comment:	Re: SHK 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets

William Sutton wrote:

 >There are 13 extant copies of Q1609 sonnets.
 >
 >My question is have all of them been collated for variants?

No, and apparently for the very good reason that, according to Kerrigan, 
only two substantive variants have ever been noticed: 'seife'/'selfe' at 
47.10 [and I don't think I believe that one] and 'proface'/'prophane' at 
89.11. The serious variant is on the title page, where two different 
wholesalers are named: as this defeats the object of naming the 
wholesaler, one wonders what Thomas Thorpe was playing at. Perhaps he 
was trying to incentivise his wholesalers?

John Briggs

[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Hardy M. Cook <editor@shaksper.net>
Date: 		Thursday, May 15, 2008
Subject: 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets
Comment: 	Re: SHK 19.0285 Extant Copies of the Q1609 Sonnets

I spent a few hours, exploring some of the books in my library and came 
up with two relevant passages that I have reproduced below:

Welles and Taylor. _William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion_. New York: 
Norton, 1997. (444)

THE Sonnets were entered in the Stationers' Register on 20 May 1609:

Tho. Thorpe		Entrd for his copie vnder the
       			hande of mr Wilson & mr
       			Lownes Warden a Booke
       			called Shakespeares sonnette

The volume (Q; STC 22353) was printed for Thomas Thorpe by George Eld in 
the same year. H. E. Rollins, who collated all thirteen extant copies of 
Q (_Variorum_, ii. 5), discovered press variants in outer C, outer D, 
inner and outer F, outer H, and inner I. A few further non-substantive 
variants have been noted in the title-page by Randall McLeod ('A 
Technique of Headline Analysis'), who has also privately communicated 
another incidental variant in outer D (49.3). MacDonald P. Jackson has 
shown that Q was probably set by two compositors who punctuated 'in very 
different ways', so the punctuation cannot be regarded as Shakespeare's. 
. .  . In spite of a few cruxes, the Sonnets are not badly printed.


Rollins, Hyder Edward. _A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The 
Sonnets_. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1944. (Volume 2, 5)

A number of small variations may be found among the thirteen extant 
copies of Q. The catchword at F3 appears correctly as "Speake" only in 
the Huntington-Steevens and Bodley-Malone copies, incorrectly as "The" 
in all others. At 27.6 the British Museum-Bright copy has a semicolon, 
not a comma, after "thee"; at 47.10 apparently the Rosenbach copy has 
the spelling "selfe", all other copies "seife"; at 76.4, 8 the question 
marks are not impressed in the Folger-Locker copy; at 89.11 the 
Folger-Mildmay and the Elizabethan Club texts read "proface", while the 
rest have "prophane"; the number of sonnet 116, elsewhere appearing as 
119, is correct in the Bodley-Caldecott copy; at 150.6 the Trinity 
College copy has a semicolon, not a comma, after "deeds." I have 
observed no other variants. (In this quotation above, I used "" to 
indicate italics. HMC)


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