Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy: A Bibliographical Hypothesis

KYD'S THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HYPOTHESIS Thomas W. Ross Thomas W. Ross (A.B., M.A., Colorado College; Ph.D., University of Michigan) has been on the staff of the English Department of Colorado College since 1951. He has been a professor since 1963 and is presently head of the department. Among his other accomplishments, he was assistant director of the Salzburg Seminar in Austria, 1956-1958. His publications include articles on late Middle English poetry, and he has a book forthcoming: an old spelling edition of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. The first printing of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, ca. 1592, is a literary landmark. The little book has interesting bibliographical characteristics , and, of course, the play itself is one of the most important in the history of the Elizabethan theater. In order that the significance of the event and of the bibliographical details may be understood, I shall first sketch something of the history of Edward Allde, the printer.1 The publishing business is unique, now as in earlier times, among commercial enterprises. What Elizabethan stationers chose to publish has had a considerable, though hardly recognized, influence upon our judgment of the literature of their times. Naturally they wanted to print books that would sell. Their work is, then, an index to the tastes of the reading public.2 A study of the books produced by a single Elizabethan printer will lead to an acquaintance with some nugatory works—along with some pleasant and even inspired ones. The same would doubtless be true today if we examined all the books listed by a modern publishing house. Edward Allde (fl. 1585-1630) has been called a typical Elizabethan trade printer. There were few of them. McKerrow reminds us (and surprises us, perhaps, with the evidence) that in the reigns of Elizabeth 1My old-spelling edition of The Spanish Tragedy will appear in 1968 in the Fountainwell Drama Texts Series published by Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London. During the summer of 1967, 1 began an analysis of books printed by Allde which may eventually result in some facts about the practices of his compositors. This work, which was carried on at the British Museum and at odier English libraries, was made possible by grants from Colorado College and from the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia: I should like to express my gratitude for both. 2Naturally our records are not perfect. Elizabethan books have disappeared as they were worn out, torn up to wrap fish, or used in the jakes. However, we can estimate die production of a printer from his extant books, if we remember that printings were limited and that if a book exists in a unique copy it is likely to have been popularread , worn to fragments, and discarded. See H. S. Bennett, English Books and Readers, 155S160) (Cambridge, 1965), p. 169. 14RM-MLA BulletinJune 1968 and James no more than 24 printers, operating some 50 presses, were active, at one time, in producing the books which represent the greatest period in English literature.3 The customary arrangement (and Edward Allde is typical) was for a printer to produce books for a number of "publishers," the stationers whose shops were clustered about St. Paul's. Both the stationer and the printer were, therefore, involved in a business venture which required one or both of them to make choices about what they would offer for sale. We are not surprised that Elizabethan plays, which we esteem so highly, were best sellers. But it startles us to realize that sermons, along with books on cookery, seamanship, and gardening, were competing with the Shakespeare quartos. The list of authors printed by Allde is a roster of most of the great writers (or so we think of them today) of Elizabethan and Jacobean times. The names which follow include only those which might be mentioned in a modern literary history: Nicholas Breton, Thomas Campion, Samuel Daniel, Sir John Davies, John Davies of Hereford, Thomas Dekker , Thomas Deloney, Michael Drayton, John Earle, John Fletcher, Ulpian Fulwell, Robert Greene, Thomas Heywood, King James I, Will Kempe, Thomas Kyd, Gervase Markham, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Massinger, Thomas Middleton, Anthony Munday, Henry Peacham, George Peele...