Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open, and the History of Mother Bunch of the West

Edited by G. L. Gomme, F.S.A. and H. B. Wheatley, F.S.A.
First Series.
III.
PRINTED FROM THE EARLIEST EXTANT COPIES, AND EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE VILLON SOCIETY.
1885.
This chap-book is not a story. It is a collection of charms and dreams supposed to have been communicated by a personage bearing the name of Mother Bunch, a name unhistorical and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, unknown to any other department of literature.
The edition here printed is made up of two distinct parts. The first part is the oldest, and at one time the only portion extant. This is reprinted from the copy in the Pepsyian Library at Cambridge, dated 1685. The second part is printed from the copy in the British Museum library, and dated by the authorities there 1780, this being the earliest version I have been able to find.
The later editions of this chap-book differ considerably from that of 1685 in the Pepsyian Collection. Almost every page varies, and that too in no inconsiderable manner. It is not perhaps necessary to point out all the variations because they are not of great literary or historical interest, but it may be well to indicate the chief differences. The 1685 edition, as here printed, contains two parts. These in later editions are amalgamated, and the title on page 10, “The second part of Mother Bunch, who lived at Bonny Ventor in the West,” does not therefore appear. As a specimen of the later editions, the following is the opening passages of the 1780 edition, and other pages are similarly altered:
“Mother Bunch’s Cabinet Broke Open.
“Reading over many ancient histories, it was my chance to meet with a story of an old woman who lived in the west country, who took delight in studying her fortune; when she found herself full twenty years old, she thought her luck worse than some who were married at fifteen or sixteen, which much troubled her mind; but to prevent all doubts she resolved to try a story she had often heard her mother talk of, and, finding it true, she resolved to teach other wonders.