Photographic Proof the Emendations in the Perkins Folio were in the
Folio Prior to Collier's Purchase of It and a Similar Proof that the Emendations
are in an English Secretary Hand and not "modern."
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Above is a copy of the Alphabet in an Elizabethan Secretary Hand taken
from Elizabethan Handwriting 1500-1650 A Manual by Giles
Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton (now Yandle) both Folger curators and
expert paleographers. Blow is a transcription of the hand in modern
type. Notice that the Old Corrector is writing in a style that the
manual would describe as "the secretarie Alphabete" Dr.
Kathman disputes that the emendations are in the Secretary hand, but
clearly he either does not know the hand or the emendations.
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Below are scans from the Perkins Folio and from the Dering Manuscript
of Henry IV. Judge for yourself.
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The above, a scan of a microfilm printout of p. 15 of The
Tempest clearly shows the emendation has been trimmed off by the
knife of the binder who put the cover on the Perkins Folio in the 18th
Century. This means the emendations were there before
Collier saw them. Arthur Freeman lied about this particular
emendation when he reviewed Professor Ganzel's book for the Times
Literary Supplement, since Freeman wrote
that in none of the cases cited by Ganzel did the knife cut through the
emendation. |
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Now take a look at the two words "Enter" this one
above is from the Authorial gloss in the so called Dering manuscript
of Henry IV, where have we seen that hand or one just like
it before?
That's right, just above in the Perkins Folio. This emendation in
the manuscript of Henry IV is in an Elizabethan
secretary hand. As, I might add, are all the 20,000 plus authentic emendations in
the Perkins Folio. |
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Notice the Old Corrector's change in Romeo and Juliet to
the Folio's misprint, "here comes of the House of the Mountagues."
Most modern editions read "here comes two of the house of the
Mountagues." (NV) Q1 reads "but heere comes two of the Mountagues."
However the Old Corrector suggests, "here comes some of the House of the
Mountagues." Some has been written into the left
margin by the Old Corrector. Now take a good look at that letter
"s" its not modern "s" it is an English secretary
"s", which again proves that the hand responsible for the emendations
in the Perkins Folio was, as I have been saying all along, is a hand consistent
with the Author's, i.e., a hand which learned its letters in the 1570 or
80s. It is not a seventeenth century hand. It is a sixteenth
century hand. In any case it is certainly not a
"modern" hand has
Freeman claimed. |
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This is page 93 from The Second Part of King Henry
the Fourth (Perkins Folio) Notice the added stage direction
"(Another paper)". See that "h" it
is not a modern "h" it too is clearly a secretary "h"
with a deep dencender that sweeps forward. Now notice the phrase
just above, it too is a stage direction and it reads "falles
backe" yet here too the letter forms are not Italic or
"modern" but clearly "secretary." Look at that
final "s" is "falls" it is as secretary as any ever
made and notice the "c" is "backe" also clearly
secretary, as is its terminal "e". |
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This emendation from The Winters Tale (p.290)
is also a Stage Direction and it reads "(helpe him"
I don't know if it is the lens of the microfilm reader or the knife of the
binder but the fact that it runs the entire length of the page in a
perfectly straight line suggest the binder's knife and not a lens which
has fall off properties and cannot be made "straight." It
has clearly cut off the last part of the letter "m" in him, as
well as the final ")" parenthesis. Notice also the clear
and quite fluid secretary form of both words. No paleographic
authority shown this phrase would conclude it to have been anything other
than pure secretary. |
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This emendation is also from The Winters Tale (p.290)
just as the above scan is. Here the scene has been properly
placed in "Bohemia" by the addition of the word in
what is clearly an Elizabethan hand. To it has been added the word
"Tune" also in an obvious Elizabethan hand.
Any contention that this wasn't an authentic looking Secretary hand is
bound to fail. That it has been cut thorough by the binders knife in
the 18th century means it wasn't Collier. That its ink has proven of
the same type as those used in the 1630s also suggests that it is
perfectly real. It remains an Elizabethan hand who c. 1635 made
20,000 authorial emendations to the Perkins Folio, some of which have been
proven to parallel early quarto readings that were not rediscovered until
the 20th century, as proven in the case of T.A. See Below. |
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This emendation corrects a mistake that was not corrected
until the discovery of q1 of Titus Andronicus in the early
part of the 20th century. The mistake is anything other than
obvious, so it had withstood generations of editors and emendations,
including Collier, who rejected this emendation in favor of the original
reading! However the discovery of q1 proves that the Old Corrector
was correct. Notice the "r" in the emendation is secretary
in style, as is the final "e". The emendation corrects the
text to read "rauenous Tyger" or in modern
spellings "ravenous tiger". Its right. This
is what Shakespeare wrote. It proves the Old Corrector knew more
about it than we did, until q1 turned up. |
The evidence above proves that Professor Dewey Ganzel was correct when he wrote that the
18th century binder's knife cut through emendations that had already been in the
text for a considerable period of time. Since the binding was on the
Perkins Folio when Collier purchased it, Collier could not have forged the
20,000 + emendations that this unique edition evidences. This
evidence is in keeping with modern forensic studies of the ink, which prove it
similar to other inks of the 1630s.
This means that Dewey, not Arthur Freeman, was correct: Collier did not forge
these emendations.
More the Old Corrector's hand is, upon inspection, not only modern, but the
hand of a person who learned his letters during the reign of Elizabeth I. A
hand that looks remarkably like the Author's hand in the manuscript of Henry
IV, known as the Dering,
ms.
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