The making of the Oxford Ben Jonson

Review of English Studies

Volumn 62, Issue 257, 2011, Pages 738-757

  Butler, Martin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 82455174304     PISSN: 00346551     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/res/hgr003     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Oxford University Press, Archives, 811352.8.
2. OUP Archives, 811352.8, typed extract from letter from C. H. Herford, 3 July 1903.
3. I. Donaldson, 'A New Edition of Ben Jonson', The Ben Jonson Journal, 2 (1995), 224.
4. See especially J. G. Robertson, 'Charles Harold Herford', Proceedings of the British Academy, 17 (1931), 401-13.
5. Greg, 'Some Notes on Ben Jonson's Works', Review of English Studies, 2 (1926), 129-45. The most conspicuous faultline in the two volumes is the four appendices in volume 2, which interrupt the sequence of Herford's literary introductions and were written by Simpson. They discuss particular biographical and textual issues: Jonson's knowledge of the alchemist in Giordano Bruno's Candelaio, possible satire on Inigo Jones in Bartholomew Fair, the material common to The New Inn and Fletcher's Love's Pilgrimage, and the authorship of the additions to The Spanish Tragedy. With the exception of the Spanish Tragedy question, these were all topics that might have waited for the commentary. Amongst notable revisions of Herford's views in later volumes of the edition is the rejection of his ascription to Donne of poems 38, 40 and 41 in The Underwood: compare H&S, 2.383-4 with 11.66-70.
6. OUP Letter book 51: Milford to Cannan, 2 October 1913.
7. See Mark Bland, 'Ben Jonson and the Legacies of the Past', Huntington Library Quarterly, 67 (2004), n.88. Bland notes that one example survives, at the University of Chicago Library, MS.1008 (a transcript of Every Man In; the catalogue currently identifies the hand as that of F. I. Carpenter, but this appears to be an error). Bland gives a severe account of Simpson's shortcomings as an editor.
8. H&S 11.66-70: developed from Evelyn's essay 'Jonson and Donne', Review of English Studies [hereafter RES], 15 (1939), 274-82.
9. The notes on Underwood 79 were developed from Evelyn's essay 'Ben Jonson's A New-Yeares-Gift', RES, 14 (1938), 175-8.
10. There is surprisingly little in her essay on 'Jonson and Dickens: a Study in the Comic Genius of London', Essays and Studies, 29 (1943), 82-92 which feeds into the commentary, despite the overlap with the account of Dickens's performance as Bobadill in the stage history for Every Man In (H&S 9.181-4).
11. 'The Folio Text of Ben Jonson's Sejanus', Anglia, 61 (1937), 398.
12. Evelyn was responding to de Vocht's edition of Sejanus in Materials for the Study of Old English Drama, 11 (1935), and to his broader arguments in his editions of Poetaster and Volpone, and his Comments on the Text of Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour: A Research about the Comparative Value of the Quarto and the Folio, Materials, vols 9 (1934), 13 (1937) and 14 (1937).
13. The exception is the work of Chanita Goodblatt: see 'An Unpublished Article on John Donne: Retrospect and Prospect', John Donne Journal, 28 (2009), 67-91.
14. Osborn Shelves, Greg, Box 9, Folder 10 [labelled Box 10], P. Simpson to Greg, 3 November 1938
15. Modern Language Review, 1 (1906), 251.
16. Folger Shakespeare Library, Y.d.609(22): Greg to Wilson, undated.
17. 'Some Notes on Ben Jonson's Works', RES, 2 (1926), 9, 139
18. The riddle of Jonson's chronology', The Library, fourth series 6 (1926) 340-7.
19. Greg first sketched the editors' problems with chronology in his piece for Modern Language Review, 21 (1926), 201-10
20. though not all of his arguments stand up to scrutiny: see M. Butler, 'The Riddle of Jonson's Chronology Revisited', The Library, seventh series, 4 (2003), 49-63.
21. RES, 9 (1933)
22. RES 104; 14 (1938)
23. RES 218. 69
24. RES 18 (1942)
25. RES 144-66.
26. RES, 2 no. 5 (1951), 279.
27. F. Bowers, 'Greg's "Rationale of Copy-Text" Revisited', Studies in Bibliography, 31 (1978), 114.
28. A. K. McIlwraith, 'The Press-corrections in Jonson's The King's Entertainment', The Library, fourth series, 24 (1943-4), 181-6. Percy acknowledged McIlwraith's corrections in his general survey of the text, though his comment that Bodleian and Wise copies of the quarto are the most correct implies that he was still thinking in terms of a hierarchy of individual copies rather than formes (H&S, 9.11).
29. Greg's sense that Percy misunderstood the ramifications of the Benson affair has been amply confirmed by subsequent scholarship: see Josephine Waters Bennett, 'Benson's Alleged Piracy of Shake-speare's Sonnets and Some of Jonson's Works', Studies in Bibliography, 21 (1968), 235-48
30. William P. Williams, 'Chetwin, Crooke, and the Jonson Folios' Studies in Bibliography, 30 (1977), 75-95.
31. Greg's critique of the Oxford edition was reinforced by Johan Gerritsen in two very short pieces: a review of volumes 9-11 (English Studies, 38 [1957], 120-6)
32. Stansby and Jonson Produce a Folio' (English Studies, 40 [1959], 52-5). But Gerritsen never published any more of this work, and the more developed critique had to wait for Fredson Bowers's essay (note 75 above)
33. T. H. Howard-Hill's 'Towards a Jonson Concordance', Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 15-16 (1972-3), 17-32.