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Dear Jon, Can you remeber where you read about Ponsonbie? I don't tink that is what happened, but I am doing a forensic search on FE,and anything I can know --more than I do now-- would be useful. Who uses "getting granular?" How awful! Thanks you for replying. Best to you and Tobie. tpr [log in to unmask] wrote: > I can't contribute to the nitty-gritty (or, as some say > now, 'get granular') on this subject; just some > questions? I recall reading some time back that > Ponsonby was more a publisher than a printer, which I > took to mean that he acquired manuscripts, farmed out > some if not most of the printing, then sold the books. > He was more the well-connected entrepreneur, maintaining > for his clients a certain distance from ink-stained > drudgery, than the printer who occupied something like > Errour's den. But is this true? If so, might it be the > case that sheets would come to Ponsonby after the > possibility of (further) correction had passed? > > Are many errors apparent in Book III that were not > listed among the Faults Escaped? If not, maybe > experience showed Ponsonby or somebody in his shop that > the printer (if it wasn't Ponsonby) had better be more > careful. > > I recall, one day in the Folger, holding in my two hands > copies of the 1590 FQ and the 1590 Arcadia, both of > course published by Ponsonby, very similar in typography > and size. Same printers? Anything to be learned about > FQ from studies of the 1590 Arcadia? > > Cheers, Jon Q. > > Some evidence that Spenser was involved in compiling the list of Faults > > Escaped: a very few of the corrections seem to be authorial revisions. > > > > Example: in most (but not all) copies of the 1590 quarto, FQ 1.6.25.5 reads > > "The Antelope, and Wolfe both swift and cruell"; but in at least one copy, > > the line reads "The Antelope, and Wolfe both fierce and fell," which is > > also the reading given in the list of Faults Escaped. I'm not saying that > > the second reading is more Spenserian than the first, but it's the kind of > > change that authors make and compositors (usually) don't (I think). The > > fact that there's a press variant as well as a notice in the corrigenda is > > tantalizing: was Spenser really in the printshop, reading the freshly > > printed sheets as they came off the press? Maybe. > > > > Other instances in which the list of Faults Escaped seems to record > > authorial revisions (as opposed to just proofreading) include the > > substitution of "Timons" for "Cleons" in 1.9.9.5, of "She" for "He" in > > 3.12.42 (twice), and of "her" for "him" in the same stanza. To be sure, a > > proofreader who was really getting into the poem could have figured out > > (from 1.9.4) that the pronouns in 3.12.42 needed fixin', and a fanatically > > interested proofreader might have noticed that, in 1.9.4, the name of > > Arthur's tutor is given (twice) as Timon, and that Cleons is the same guy. > > (Presumably the name is a fossil remnant of an early draft, in which Arthur > > was schooled by someone whose name recalls Gk. kleos 'praise'; cf. Arthur's > > flirtation with Praysdesire in 2.9.39.) Again, though, this seems to me the > > kind of thing that an _author_ notices and cares about -- if he cares at > > all, which apparently Spenser did. > > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask] > > East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------