{"id":669,"date":"2021-11-05T16:28:58","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T16:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.www.huronresearch.ca\/impressions-clone\/?p=669"},"modified":"2025-08-18T14:19:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:19:19","slug":"defence-of-multiple-copies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/impressions\/2021\/11\/05\/defence-of-multiple-copies\/","title":{"rendered":"A Defence of Multiple Copies: Selections from Western’s Milton and T.S. Eliot Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Introduction<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Print Variants<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Provenance <\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 Conclusion<\/a><\/h5>\n

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Introduction<\/h1>\n

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While there are many special collections within the University of Western Ontario\u2019s Archives and Special Collections, one of the most significant is the G. William Stuart Collection of Milton and Miltoniana. Purchased by Western in 1968, and supplemented in subsequent decades, it represents the greatest collection of its kind in Canada. The collection contains all of the early and many of the later editions of the works of John Milton, including two copies of the 1645 Poems<\/em>, early and later editions of the major prose works, and over a hundred editions of Paradise Lost<\/em>. Add to this a wide range of related seventeenth-century political and religious imprints, including numerous pamphlets. One such pamphlet is Joseph Hall\u2019s Defence of the Remonstrance<\/em>. First published in 1641, for the London stationer, Nathaniel Butter, it represents a reply within a longer polemical exchange known as the Smectymnus controversy, a debate that focused heavily on the issue of Church governance in England (Image 1)<\/span>. This polemical tone is made clear on the title page where we are told that \u201cThe right of Leiturgie<\/em> and Episcopacie<\/em> is clearly vindicated from the vaine cavils, and challenges of the ANSWERERS.\u201d While Hall\u2019s name is nowhere to be found on the title page, we are told that this Defence<\/em> is \u201cBy the Author of the said Humble Remonstrance<\/em>.\u201d This point matters because it was this earlier work of Hall\u2019s that prompted the counter-attacks, in print, from a pseudonymous group of Puritan divines known as Smectymnus, and eventually, from no less than John Milton himself.<\/p>\n

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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/impressions\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2021\/10\/Defence_Titlepage.png” title_text=”Defence_Titlepage” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/impressions\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2021\/10\/Copies-1.png” title_text=”Copies” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_id=”c1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Western has three copies of Hall\u2019s Defence<\/em> and two of the three are bound with one or more of the replies in the controversy (Image 2)<\/span>. This makes sense when we consider that this single printing contributed to a larger pamphlet war and so binding it with one or more of the replies allowed readers to move between the arguments and replies to examine the attacks and counter-attacks in close proximity. Two of Western\u2019s three copies are found in the Stuart collection mentioned above, and the third derives from the John Davis Barnett collection that came to Western in 1918.[1]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Looking to these books allows us to appreciate the differences between multiple copies, a point that has been emphasized before on this blog, but a point that will be made central in this post.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row module_id=”FN1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

[1]<\/span> For more on Barnett, see Rebecca Power\u2019s storymap: https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/4186fb416a1d495c90751aa8afecab6e<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 |<\/i>Back to section<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Same, but Different: The Print Variants in Hall’s Remonstrance<\/em><\/h1>\n

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Hall\u2019s Defence of the Remonstrance<\/em> is, like all printed works of the era, a product of human, tactile labour, and as a result, a work that contains errors. When printing a sheet for a run of say 700 copies, the printer or the compositors working for him or her,[2]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> might only notice an error after several hundred sheets are printed. Rather than dispose of the sheets, the printer would often keep them, but reset the type before printing the remainder of the run. Those cases where an error is caught and corrected during the printing of the work are known as stop-press corrections. Hall\u2019s Defence of the Remonstrance<\/em> shows evidence of this kind of correction as some surviving copies have the correct spelling of \u201chaving,\u201d on Q3r, while the others survive with it misspelled. In the case of Western\u2019s three copies, one of them is in the corrected state (Image 3)<\/span>, while the other two are in the uncorrected state (Image 4)<\/span>. As seen in the images shown here, reader-annotators have made corrections to the print with handwritten corrections in the uncorrected copies.[3]<\/span><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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That both of the uncorrected copies show evidence of a similar ms. correction may seem surprising at first, but not when we consider that printers guided readers to emend. Typically located near the end of a work is what is known as an Errata, that is a list of printed errors found within the work. The inclusion of a printed Errata in early imprints was common. On the one hand it served as an admission of error, and so a publishing of the printer\u2019s mistakes, but it also acknowledged that the errors had been caught, and so a reminder of the printer\u2019s careful review of the work. Even when certain errors were caught and corrected, however, new ones might emerge or be discovered after yet another printing. For example, while copy one has the correct \u201chaving\u201d on an early page, it also has the incorrect \u201cabout\u201d on a later page (Image 5)<\/span>. As the Errata at the end of this copy notes, p. 135, line 11 should read \u201cwithout\u201d and so directs the reader to the original error and correction (Image 6)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

While this truncated discussion offers but a brief insight into one aspect of the early modern printing process, it does highlight the differences that exist between copies, even during the printing stage. While it is true that Western owns three copies of Hall\u2019s Defence of the Remonstrance<\/em>, each of those copies contain textual variants and so are not the same.[4]<\/span><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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