The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Reginal Scot, 1584, PI1599614 

Printed in 1584, the first edition of this book provides very little detail on how it actually came to light. Albeit presenting the author’s name on the title page, other information appears to be surprisingly absent. Neither location of print or printer’s name are included, possibly because, as clarified by the ODNB page on Reginald Scot, the work was published without a licence. I would speculate however, that the controversial topic may have also played a role in the publisher and printer – identified as William Brome and Henry Denham (EEBO) – wishing to conceal their identity and involvement. This view could also be supported by the emphasis on justifications that is present throughout the book. The title page includes a bible quote, which could easily be interpreted as the author attempting to connect his claims with a divine purpose. By including this verse, Scot compares his writing to a quest for the truth, focused of exposing “false prophets” – specifically witches and magicians – as liars. However, the biblical reference also functions as a defence against censorship and critics, concept which is later repaired during the dedication to the author’s patrons.  

Overall, the text is dedicated to four people – excluding readers – and all the dedications seem to navigate the thin line between praising the individuals dressed and asking for their mercy. Scot directly writes to his cousin – his financial backing, for lack of better words – and to three additional contemporary figures: Sir Roger Manwood Knight, Lord Chief Baron of the Majesty’s Court, a judge, asking for his comprehension in reading his book, and Doctors Coldwell Deone of Rochester and of Canterbury, asking for their courtesy and understanding. The topic itself, considering the context, seems divisive. the early modern population seems to have had very clear concepts of witchcraft as being a human manifestation of the devil, and a work which attempts to debunk these views could easily be interpreted as going against both religion and kingdom and promoting blasphemous and deviant behaviour. Scot’s work, after all, presents arguments that go completely against works like the Démonomanie of Jean Bodin (printed 4 years before) and even the views of King James VI (who later published a work which claimed to denounce witchcraft as a true malevolent practice and directly mentioned and headily critiqued Scot’s views).Not many copies remain of this first print, however, the existing documents provide some evidence of their “provenance” in the form of different inscribed signatures or initials and underlined sections throughout the text. Additionally, evidence present in other texts suggests that Scot’s work was well known: as explained in the ODNB entry, Scot “was very widely read in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries”, with other authors referring to him and his Discovery in their works or seemingly using it as reference material. Despite its unlicensed beginnings therefore, The Discoverie of Witchcraft had a substantial role in the early modern world, passing from hand to hand and having been taken under consideration by a number of Renaissance figures. 

Thomas Coryat’s Coryat’s Crudities (1611) 

The most obvious paratext seen in Coryat’s epynomous travel account Coryat’s Crudities is the elaborate title page. Each of the many illustrations on said title page are numbered, with each number correlating directly to a chapter in the account. Each illustration is extremely intricate and a print of a metal engraving, allowing for elaborate and fine detail. A further paratext is the ‘key to the title page’ (A1R) which follows the aforementioned illustrations, and gives a summary of what each chapter entails. This is then further reiterated in the following paratext, a second ‘key to the title page’ which summarises the initial description in rhyming couplets. One of the most interesting aspects of the 1611 copy of Coryat’s Crudities is its evident provenance, with a previous owner making notes in the margins drawing attention to particularly favourite lines, and asking questions as to what they mean. 

During the module we’ve had the chance to engage in many aspects of the Early Modern Theatre, one of these has been the printing process of the Renaissance. Having just recently been introduced in England by William Caxton, the printing press quickly became a necessary tool for many daily activities, including the theatre. Plays began to be produced for the population and printed in – what probably would at that time – a large number of copies. In a way, this allowed for the further commercialization of drama, that not only remained a performative art but also became a profitable publishing activity. However, as shown by the Folger Library and other entities, printing during the Renaissance was a wildly different process than modern audiences might imagine. 

Relaying much more on manpower – and as a result suffering more from human error – the printing process began with the organization of individual letters on a press. What would today be quickly accomplished on a computer was instead a much more complex job during the 16^th century. Texts were meant to fit within a certain amount of space and this wasn’t always possible or easy to accomplish. Many texts, therefore, would have to receive extensive alteration. This process of what we could now call pagination could then lead to a number of mistakes, either in the form of missing spaces or letters and misspelled words.  

The letters would then be covered in ink, a page would be set on top of them and the entire piece would be inserted in the printing press and the ink transferred through pressure on the page. It may all seem very straightforward now, however, the process could take long amounts of time and could lead to an imperfect of unsellable product: ink could easily be smeared and – if not followed correctly – the page order could cause the entire print to be mistaken. Because printers worked with large pieces of paper, it was necessary to fold them in order to achieve the desired page dimensions. Like shown in the brief activity we completed during lecture, this folding would cause the folded pages to be in the right order, but this order was not reflected any more ones the paper was once more unfolded and spread out for the print: pages would be printed in reverse and in different orders. 

Another important aspect that came to light during the discussion on the printing press was the author’s role in the production of his works. Whilst some authors – like Ben Jonson – were involved in the production of his Folio, others –like Shakespeare, in fact – were not. Shakespeare’s First Folio was in fact published posthumously by a few members of the King’s Men. Similarly, many theatre companies and groups were the only ones to own the complete version of plays (actors having only received their parts and cues) and as such, appear to have been the ones to “own the rights” to those texts. We see, then, that the author may not have been involved in the printing process of their texts. This has to severely alter our approach to the study of these sources since we have to keep in mind that the final product we have in our hands – and it may well be the only copy available – was not necessarily moderated by the author but rather passed through the editing hands of theatre companies, editors and printer, all of whom may have altered it. 

Abi, Ellie, Leanne, Soso, Raveena & Sophie

As a group we learned many things about early modern printing and the printing of the first folio. While all of us carry around books on a day to day basis, we’d never really considered the complexities that go into making them, especially for early modern printers in regards to folios and quartos – folding paper in the lecture was hard enough for us so it really brought an appreciation to the process. One of the most interesting things we also considered as a group was when we considered what was in Shakespeare’s first folio in comparison to what had previously been published. Shakespeare’s first folio contained around 18 new plays, including Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale, which was surprising considering those are two of his best known plays. 

Something we also found surprising was that, though the paratext claimed Shakespeare’s folio was complete, and that all other copies of his plays were pirated (“stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed”), the catalogue was actually incomplete. Troilus and Cressida does not appear in the catalogue but is included at the very end of the folio, which suggests there may have been an issue with getting the printing rights for the play, and so it was added in at the end just before the folio was published. The folio does not include the plays Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen, perhaps for the same reason, or possibly because these plays were created in collaboration with other writers. 

Learning how to interpret the paratextual content for various collections, such as The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which we looked at in the Robinson Library, has enabled us as a group to understand early modern printing on a deeper level. The paratext in early modern books was often used for different purposes: to introduce the text, market the book, and provide information on the publisher. Moreover, in our study of early printed works, we also examined annotations placed in the margins of primary material, which sometimes alluded to ideas of censorship or previous ownership. We learnt that all of this information, which we sometimes overlook as readers, is vital to our understanding and interpretation of many older texts. 

By observing secondary sources on paratexts, such as the documentary ‘The Secret Life of Books’, which shows how the language in the paratext of Shakespeare’s first folio was most likely a marketing ploy due to its use of imperatives and emphatic language, we have discovered just how influential the prefatory material can be. The documentary also suggested that Shakespeare’s works weren’t entirely his, but made in collaboration with others. This came as quite a surprise, since the general impression of Shakespeare was that he was responsible for all of his work.

As a group, our approach to reading has changed dramatically. The importance of examining source texts in great detail, with a thorough approach, is now something we all wish to take onboard for each of our different modules. Our long term goal is to approach each new text with great scrutiny, considering the meaning and hidden clues behind paratexts. After learning the intricate and time-consuming process behind the ‘moveable type’, which enabled us to have access to so many of Shakespeare’s plays, we are now even more appreciative of early printed works. This module has taught us how to interpret older – and even newer – texts but also the value of the early printing process.

PRODUCTION – PRINTING AS A LITERARY MODE OF PRODUCTION

• The international influence of printing houses upon Shakespeare’s printing process( Korea, Belgium, London) and the level of artisan skill which was involved. This influenced how we perceive books and early modern printing as scholars today.
• The process itself of printing, the evolution of such process during the 16th century, and how this influences the texts within them. For example, the order pages were printed on was not chronological (as I had originally presumed) and therefore explains some of the gaps in Early Modern texts, adding an interesting mode of production element to the study of Shakespeare’s plays. We also learnt that the “folio is the most expensive type of book because materials were more expensive than human production of printing”. 
• We learnt about the commercial capital attached to print culture and printing shops for example, in St. Pauls, which allowed us to contextualise the First Folio and Shakespeare’s play scripts as products/artefacts as well as literary items.

Paratext

• How to use online archive websites such as the ESTC, ODNB and the EEBO to search for information regarding the various editions of books. The ODNB was useful for finding out further biographical details of the author. The information that I received from the ESTC informed my interpretation of the works contributors and contemporaries. For example, The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginal Scot provided scarce detail on those who contributed to publishing the work. Using the various websites it allowed me to find out more about the history behind the printing of The Discoverie of Witchcraft which was left out of the title page. Thus, I was able to find out other information surrounding the publisher Henry Denham and his contribution to other types of similar work.
• As well as this, looking at a physical copy of the text which has been passed through various owners we applied our study of annotations as paratexts. We scrutinised the annotations and noticed patterns in locations of notes that were placed in margins next to Bible references, suggesting a previous owner with Christian interests.

Authorship

The concept of authorship was radically different in the early modern period to our idea of it now. We learnt in week 4 that play scripts, let alone their authors, were not held in the same regard they are today. Published scripts were often sold without the author’s knowledge or permission. A playwright’s original script was less important to printers and publishers than the version of it closest to the one they and their readers would remember from stage performances. Without the publishing of scripts playwrights like Shakespeare and Marlowe would have almost no control of their plays. They would be performed year on year by companies that would adapt the stories to their performances, making the plays almost akin to stories told by word of mouth. In some ways this is understandable as plays would often be collaborative projects. Even if one author had written the original text, editors, civil servants in charge of censoring scripts would have a hand in altering them. Actors might improvise in their performances. Additionally publishers might add paratextual materials, make notes in the margins or even make corrections to the texts. Through these aspects of the theatre industry the authors relation to the finished product of a published script is less direct than it might be today.

Outcome 

The various materials on printing that we have looked at over the last 2 weeks, will be very useful in relation to other aspects that we have observed over the rest of the module. We have better understood the printing process and the intricate thinking that went into these publications, in order to appeal to their targeted audience within the period, such as the order in which the plays were published in his ‘Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies’ introduction page. Keeping their targeted audience stimulated and entertained was obviously the priority of publishers, in a similar way that it was a priority for the Shakespearean company; the large variety of different plays on offer and the actors ability to play a variety of different roles parallels the importance of these respective intricacies. The various online archival websites that we have been given access to will also greater inform our understanding in the wider context of other materials we have observed. Furthermore, though not specifically related to the literal printing process, we have observed the fact that though writers such as Ben Jonson may have been rivals to Shakespeare, even they were able to appreciate his undeniable ability as a playwright: his respective praises include, “Thou art a monument without a tomb” and the “Sweet Swan of Avon”. 

By Sarah Thompson, Olivia Varty, Ally Cloke, Guy Seddon

Soso Ayika, Sophie Hamilton, Abi Dickson, Ellie Simmonite, Raveena Mehta, Leanne Francis

The first printing press in England was set up in 1476 by William Caxton. Its arrival enabled English printers to publish the early works of writers in quarto and folio form.

There were various stages involved in the publication of an early modern text. At the time, publishing industries consisted of printers, compositors, stationers, and publishers, each contributing to different stages of the printing process.

Printers manufactured the physical book, compositors worked the press, stationers bound and covered the pages, and publishers paid stationers license fees and provided printers with paper.

During the 1550s, some printers rose to popularity for their impressive craftsmanship and skillfulness. Christopher Moretus, a Frenchman who worked as a printer-publisher in Antwerp, was well known for his printing. At the height of his career, Plantin printed around 50 texts a year on at least 16 different presses. His work was symbolised by a golden compass around which the words ‘labore et constantia’ were written, meaning ‘work and persistency’.

Producing an early modern text required different tools.

Letters would be cut using files and chisels, with unreachable parts being removed by a negative punch. The punch creates the matrix in which the type was cast, then placed on a tray, inked and pressed onto paper.”

The printed pages were proof-read for mistakes made in production, such as incorrect grammar, punctuation or spelling, and would then be corrected.

Once this process was complete, the text would be ready for print.

Close Reading of Paratext:

The Discoverie of Witchcraft title page is useful as it tells us the original owner of the book (Cuthbert Cockson) and tells us who the book was dedicated to. Throughout the text we see various examples of what looks like people practicing their handwriting, which suggests a lack of access to paper. We also see notes handwritten at the side of some of the pages whereby one of the owners of the book can make comments about it and express their opinions. 

Helen Smith noted that scholars of the early modern period have questioned the historical authority of the author, arguing that “textual production was a substantially more collaborative process than is assumed by post-Romantic notions of the solitary genius” [Smith, P.8]. So essentially, paratexts are inevitable and will entail some sort of collaborative process be it from the printer, binder or reader themself.

If you wanted to make a book today you would only really need to open your laptop, type it out, then print it. In theory its simple. If we go back a good few hundred years, we see a very different process. The printing of ‘books’ in the 15^th century is obviously a more laborious task than it is today. This is not just due to the founding of electricity and the creation of the printer but also some of the specifications that some of these texts would need. 

Having a play printed would mean people at the time could now read plays at home instead of having to go into the depths of London and past the Baiting pits, brothels and gambling dens. This did not mean in any way that plays getting performed would be stopped but now the writers could have their name to a play that might be in the reading room of the high classes. 

This brings us onto how these plays were printed. Print shops would receive a commission from the stationers and then they would have the text onto the sheets using the large wooden printing press. The text would be laid out with individual metal letters, backwards nonetheless, and then coated with ink before being pressed onto the paper. The paper would come in the form of the large folio pages: being the most expensive to print due to them being the largest pages they would have been on one side of the paper and not be cramped onto it, and then you would get down to the cheaper quarto pieces that are folded down into four to make a ‘booklet’. These Quartos could be bound together with thread or even have a cover made for you by the stationers to protect it even more (for an extra cost of course) This was already a  well-established system, from as early as Chaucer’s period where we saw manuscripts being formed in this way. 

Yet what is now different to these old manuscripts is that we now have the addition of Paratexts! Paratexts are some of the most important features of old printed texts. Paratexts are pieces written around the play, adverts, letters written by other authors praising the text, notes in the margins and mages to name a few. Today Paratexts are still relevant, (Helen coopers most excellent example of ‘Paratext-ception’ in the introduction to her article sums this up) but not as well written and detailed as those included in the books from the 15^th century. One example being Benjamin Johnsons collected works. This book that was first printed in 1616 had many dedications to the author. There were multiple from Francis Beaumont praising Johnson, readers would see these ‘fluff’ pieces before the main piece and would perhaps give them a more certain idea of the work that they were about to read. 

Looking closer at some of the Paratexts, specifically the very vivid and striking image that awaits on the opening page of Johnsons collected works (As pictured). This image that consumes the first page of the works is full of references to the plays within. The characters with Latin inscriptions around them signify that the works will have classical allusions to them and maybe also a signifier to the court for the ‘Masques’ that are included within the works as well. Even more interestingly the two characters at the top have the words Tragedy and Comedy underneath them showing what type of plays are in these works. As he was most notable for those two genres. 

For a product that we now take for granted it is certainly interesting to get an understanding of how much effort went into printing these texts back then.

Group: Louis Linsey, Amy Sandbach, Helena Eades, Helena Hussey, Ruairidh Watt

[Image; from collected works of Benjamin Johnson]

By Sarah Thompson & Olivia Varty

The Social life history of Scot’s “On the Discoverie of Witches”  is complicated, to say the least. What began its life as one man’s reasoning and skepticism of the legitimacy of the witch problem, can in 2019 be read as a rare book, both in print and ideology. Also,it is an example of proto-feminism, as Scot argues it is mainly women, especially poor women, who are accused, as they do not hold power in society.

The book was scathed by King James VI of Scotland (who was obsessed with finding witches, even writing his own famous book Daemonolgie and having Macbeth tailored to his odd hobby), meaning it was not reprinted and circulated so much in the late-Stuart era. However, the copy we viewed at the Philip Robinson Special Collections still remains, and as we viewed, heavily annotated in both Latin and English. There are frequent references to religion, both throughout Scot’s original text and within these mysterious, inked scribblings. We discussed in Dr. De Rycker’s lecture, the significance of marginalia and annotations as Renaissance paratexts, how they reveal to us what Early Modern readers were thinking when they first read the book, and which parts were of importance to them. The illustrations of Scot’s book seem crude to a modern reader, but physically in this copy are some of the most fragile, suggesting they have endured wear-and-tear from eager scholars fascinated by the “tricks” and theatrical mechanisms used by supposed “witches”.

The 1584 printing of The Discoverie of Witchcraft is particularly fascinating as the information surrounding the paratext of the work is excluded from this printed version. Instead, we are provided with the provenance of the copy, which it is shown to have been placed under the ownership of the historian Robert White. It was not until 1942 that the copy was donated to King’s College the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne by Amy Potts. Although the identities of the printers are absent from the copy, we used the ESTC and the ODNB to uncover more information regarding the work’s imprinting. The copy was published by Henry Denham in 1984 for William Brome in London. This information is crucial for establishing the authenticity of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, as the printers have control over the final text. It is important to note that Henry Denham was responsible for the publishing of various religious texts from 1563-1587.

Vastly different from the process of producing books today, books in the early modern period were printed in a sheet-by-sheet process that were then folded, bound together, covered, and thus completed. The folding of these sheets was synonymous to the price of the book; a folio for example being considerably more expensive that an octavo. This was due to price of paper as a commodity in this era, and therefore, a folio version of a text, where each sheet was folded once, required much more paper than an octavo, where each sheet was folded eight times.

We can see the number of sheets used in a book made in the early modern period as they generally feature at the bottom of the page an ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ etc. or a similar way of marking that enables those who bound the sheets together to understand what order they go in. Much like the writing of plays, it appears that the printing process itself too was very collabarative.

Designed by Johannas Gutenberg but brought to England by William Caxton in 1476, printing presses were used to print the text onto the sheets. This process originally involved the use of woodblock where letters were lined up and placed on a wooden board called a ‘galley’. This galley is then bound with chord to stabalise the individual matrix / letters in place and placed on a wooden frame upon a strone press. The text / letter cut-outs are then inked and moistened paper is laid over the structure. This is then rolled under the carriage and the printed page is removed.

Another comparison with early modern book production and today’s is the authority that the publishers had over the construction of a book, rather than the author. Firstly, the printers manufactured and created the physical sheets / pages of the book. These sheets were then bound by the stationers and covered according to the customers wishes. The publishers, however had the most authority over the book’s production, and were responsible for paying the author, the stationers’ licensing fees and providing the printers with paper. However, they did not just control the money aspect of a book’s creation, but held authority over what could be included or discluded from the content of the title pages, including dedications, commissioned dedicatory verses to the author or even the author’s name.

The Fairie Queene and The Shepeardes Calendar, together with the other works of England’s arch-poet, Edm. Spenser 1611. 

• This collection, an updated version from the original publication of Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene 1590&1596 and his other works, was interesting to look at and compare to the previous publication of it as there was distinctive differences in the two published texts. The collection published later, was published as a Folio as opposed to the first publication which was a Quarto. 
• Furthermore, the paratext in the collection of works was far more elaborate, not just because of the extra text added to the dedications, but also the printed text was far neater, and the print more elaborate. 
• According to ESTC this particular edition was the first of these as it was printed as a collection, with only one other edition of it having been published.  

The Countesse of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Philip Sidney. 1633. 

• ESTC indicates that this particular edition is a second edition of the text, whilst the title page revealed that this was the 8th time of the author being published, with the edition having ‘never before printed sonnets’ from the Sidney.   
• Furthermore, this edition also featured a supplementary passage by Sir W.A Knight, which when consulting ESTC could be identified Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling. In addition to this, the second edition also features a dedication from the author to his sister and a letter to the reader signed by a H.S.; Hugh Stanford on behalf of the countess. 

• Fundamentally, when examining the additional material in later versions of printed texts, we can usually observe an increase in paratextual material that in turn can alter the meaning and reception of the texts as a literary entity. 

Sophia, Elli, Kelly, Becky, Luke