The volume is a folio by measurement, but the signatures are in fours.
Collation: Five leaves, the second with the signature A_3 B-M in fours. Aa-Bb; Cc-Cc_2 (two leaves); C_3 (one leaf); one leaf; D-I in fours; two leaves. [N]-Y in fours; B-Q in fours; R (two leaves); S-X in fours; Y (two leaves); Z-Oo in fours. Pp (two leaves). Qq; A-K in fours. L (two leaves). [M]-R in fours. A-P in fours. Q (two leaves). [R]-V in fours.
The volume opens with Bartholomew Fayre, which occupies pages [1-10], 1-88 (pages 12, 13, and 31 misnumbered), or the first group of signatures given above.
2. The Staple of Newes, paged independently, [1]-[76] (pages 19, 22, and 63 misnumbered), and signatured independently as in the second group above.
3. The Diuell is an Asse, [N]-Y, paged [91]-170 (pages 99, 132, and 137 misnumbered). [N] recto contains the title page (verso blank). N_2 contains a vignette and the persons of the play on the recto, a vignette and the prologue on the verso. N_3 to the end contains the play proper; the epilogue being on the last leaf verso.
One leaf (pages 89-90) is thus unaccounted for; but it is evident from the signatures and pagination that The Diuell is an Asse was printed with a view to having it follow Bartholomew Fayre. These three plays were all printed by I. B. for Robert Allot in 1631. Hazlitt says that they are often found together in a separate volume, and that they were probably intended by Jonson to supplement the folio of 1616.[7]
Collation made from copy in the library of Yale University at New Haven.
It was the opinion of both Whalley and Gifford that the publication of The Devil is an Ass in 1631 was made without the personal supervision of the author. Gifford did not believe that Jonson ‘concerned himself with the revision of the folio, ... or, indeed, ever saw it’. The letter to the Earl of Newcastle (Harl. MS. 4955), quoted in Gifford’s memoir, sufficiently disproves this supposition, at least so far as Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass are concerned. In this letter, written according to Gifford about 1632, Jonson says: ‘It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send your lordship no more of my book. I sent you one piece before, The Fair, ... and now I send you this other morsel, The fine gentleman that walks the town, The Fiend; but before he will perfect the rest I fear he will come himself to be a part under the title of The Absolute Knave, which he hath played with me’. In 1870 Brinsley Nicholson quoted this letter in Notes and Queries (4th S. 5. 574), and pointed out that the jocular allusions are evidently to Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass.
Although Gifford is to some extent justified in his contempt for the edition, it is on the whole fairly correct.
The misprints are not numerous. The play is overpunctuated. Thus the words ‘now’ and ‘again’ are usually marked off by commas. Occasionally the punctuation is misleading. The mark of interrogation is generally, but not invariably, used for that of exclamation. The apostrophe is often a metrical device, and indicates the blending of two words without actual elision of either. The most serious defect is perhaps the wrong assignment of speeches, though later emendations are to be accepted only with caution. The present text aims to be an exact reproduction of that of the 1631 edition.