Collation: Title, one leaf, B-H, in eights.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT
(1584-1616)
AND
JOHN FLETCHER
(1579-1625)
28. Comedies | And | Tragedies | Written by | Francis Beaumont | And | Iohn Fletcher | Gentlemen. | Never printed before, | And now publiſhed by the Authours | Originall Copies. | [Quotation] London, | Printed for Humphrey Robinſon, at the three Pidgeons, and for | Humphrey Moſeley at the Princes Armes in St Pauls | Church-yard. 1647.
These two dramatists, between whom "there was a wonderfull consimility of phancy," and who shared everything in common, were inseparably connected in their writings. No collected edition of their plays appeared before this posthumous one, which is dedicated to Philip, Earl of Pembroke, by ten actors, and is introduced to the reader by James Shirley, the dramatist, who speaks of the volume as "without flattery the greatest Monument of the Scene that Time and Humanity have produced." This, too, notwithstanding the fact that Shakespeare's Works had appeared twenty-four years before.
This edition appears to have been due to Moseley's enterprise. He tells us in a frank address called "The Stationer to the Readers":
"'T were vaine to mention the Chargeableneſſe of this VVork; for thoſe who own'd the Manuſcripts, too well knew their value to make a cheap eſtimate of any of theſe Pieces, and though another joyn'd with me in the Purchaſe and Printing, yet the Care & Pains were wholly mine...."
Commenting upon the fact stated on the title-page that the plays had not been printed before, he says: "You have here a New Booke; I can ſpeake it clearely; for of all this large Uolume of Comedies and Tragedies, not one, till now, was ever printed before...." "And as here's nothing but what is genuine and Theirs, ſo you will find here are no Omiſſions; you have not onely All I could get, but all that you muſt ever expect. For (beſides thoſe which were formerly printed) there is not any Piece written by theſe Authours, either Joyntly or Severally, but what are now publiſhed to the VVorld in this Volume. One only Play I muſt except (for I meane to deale openly) 'tis a Comedy called the VVilde-gooſe-Chase, which hath beene long lost...."
Nothing which throws light upon the history of printing at this time is more interesting than the Postscript added at the end of the commendatory verses by Waller, Lovelace, Herrick, Ben Jonson and others, and immediately after a poem by Moseley himself ending, "If this Booke faile, 'tis time to quit the Trade." ...