Yesterday, Jason Scott-Warren (Cambridge University) and I presented some updated findings about and readings of the marked up copy of Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623) housed in the Rare Book Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The talk was graciously hosted by the Society for Renaissance Studies and moderated by Daniel Starza Smith of King’s College London.
This particular copy of the first edition of Shakespeare’s plays was almost certainly owned and annotated by the poet John Milton, as Jason first proposed last September after reading an essay I had written about the reader’s marks. (See a digest of media coverage here.) Our talk moves beyond an effort to validate the attribution, as we consider possible timelines for Milton’s engagement with the playtexts based on palaeographic and other kinds of material evidence. How did Milton read and re-read Shakespeare? We also offer a new theory about the book’s provenance prior to its entering the historical record in an 1899 auction catalogue. If you were unable to tune in, a full playback of the talk and Q&A (with cat cameos) is available below.
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