> Now, does it make sense to ask: 'Is this a 1596 edition containing the
> Letter to Ralegh and the sonnets to notables, or is it not?'
Penny,
As Jean said the other day, 'A letter of the Authors' and the dedicatory
sonnets were not reprinted in 1596; so any copy of 1596 that includes them
is obviously a 'sophisticated' copy, made up by joining the text of 1596
to the paratexts of 1590. Because books of this age have often been
rebound at least once in their lives, it is not unusual to find copies
like this that include materials from disparate sources. Because 1596 Part
1 was set from a copy of 1590 (even to the extent of copying many of its
mistakes, such as the misprint of '600' on what should have been page
'510'), they concluded with the same pagination at the end of Book III,
with a slight difference of course in that the ending to Book III had been
shortened -- leaving space for the two commendatory poems you have noted
in the BL copy. But the fact that the pagination is continuous from the
end of the BL copy's 1596 material to the beginning of its 1590 material
is, well, immaterial -- it is just an artefact of the fact that the later
edition was set from a copy of the earlier edition.
Does that make sense?
Good to see you on Saturday--
andrew
|