Comedias sueltas sin pie de imprenta en la Biblioteca del "Institut del Teatre" (Barcelona) (review)

230BCom, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Winter 1 990) editorial hesitancies. A more precise identification of the various Jupiter plays, for example, could perhaps have been possible were the editors able to consult the actual editions available. The same is true for the Sitio de Viena discussion: the 9 April 1684 performance was probably of the second part (both parts were published that year in Madrid, with aprobaciones of 15 January and 10 April, respectively) . Along this line I would note that data furnished in this volume by Shergold, Varey, and Davis afford some support to an hypothesis that toward the end of the seventeenth century initial publication in suelta form tended to follow closely upon actual performance. The "Lista de obras citadas," p(21)-43 shows the editors' thoroughness of investigation. Given the stated parameters of their discussion I can understand the omission of Bainton's Cambridge University Library catalog as a work cited (although presumably consulted); but not, however, the omission of Profeti's 1982 "addenda et corrigenda" of her 1976 bibliography of Montalbán (which is cited). Reference to the 1982 "addenda" could have been pertinent to the discussions on pages 70, 84, 145, 195, and 218. The editors are to be commended for their consistent practice of indicating library call numbers (signatures) for editions and manuscripts actually consulted. The format of this volume is clear, highly readable, and remarkably lacking in typographical errors (although there is a valiento for valiente, p. 73). The "índice onomástico" at the end is extremely useful. In the "Introducción" Professors Shergold, Varey, and Davis state their goal, in part, as "aclarar dudas acerca de la paternidad de obras teatrales, rectificar errores en fuentes impresas y relacionar títulos alternativos con las obras a las que se refieren," and their hope that this work will be "un paso más hacia la soluci ón de los muchos problemas bibliográficos que ofrece el teatro español de los siglos XVII y XVIII" (p. 19). Allowing for the limitations of their sources, they have succeeded. This volume is a worthy addition to the Fuentes series, and a positive contribution to comedia scholarship. Karl C. Gregg The University of Arizona Vázquez Estévez, Margarita. Comedias sueltas sin pie de imprenta en la Biblioteca del "Institut del Teatre" (Barcelona). Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1987. Hardcover. 220 pp. DM88. Comedia suelta aficionados have been aware of Margarita Vázquez Estévez' work on this project since the introduction to the volume under review Reviews231 appeared as an article in Segismundo; Revista Hispánica de Teatro (vol. 18, nos. 1-2, 1984) with the title "Respuesta al anexo 'Comedias sueltas impresas en Valencia, según Fajardo', a través del fondo de la Biblioteca del Museo del Teatro de Barcelona." After the article whetted our appetites, the full catalog has finally appeared, and both the author and publisher are to be commended on several counts for producing such a fine work. The now expanded introduction is a very complete study which discusses suelta questions in general and explains the specific criteria that the author followed in this catalog. This catalog represents a detailed inventory of a specific portion of an outstanding collection. It was prepared with a particular focus: she used the Fajardo list as a point of departure and in the process uncovered 23 sueltas not recorded in any of the previously published major suelta catalogs. Yet another praiseworthy aspect is that Vázquez Estévez, by means of detailed description accompanied by 16 well-chosen photographs points out the very essence of the suelta-study problem. For the scholar interested in printing history, the problem is to determine whether sueltas with similar descriptions are in fact (a) different copies of a single edition, (b) different editions, or (c) different states of one edition. However, and it is unfortunate that there has to be a however, this work has problems both on the technical and on the mechanical level. The decisions and procedures on the technical level are the more serious by far. It is to be applauded that she follows standards suggested by Wilson, but it is unfortunate that the collation formula is misunderstood...