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This essay deals with some features of the third volume of the 1640-1 edition of Jonson’s Works . (The designation ‘third’ is adopted here for the sake of bibliographical convenience: it refers to the texts which were printed for the first time in 1640-1, then published together with the texts printed but left unissued in 1631 (F2(2)) . It concentrates on four particular aspects. It attempts to give a general account of the volume showing how it follows or changes the procedures of the printing of other volumes of the Works; it discusses ways in which the volume carries out intentions Jonson might have had with regard to its publication; it goes some way towards placing this volume in the context of other works printed in the same printing house, that of John Dawson, Jr.; and it proposes a narrative for the production.
The circumstances of F2(3) differ from those of the earlier volumes, for Jonson did not live to take part in or monitor its production. His direct influence on it must therefore have been more remote than the earlier work. And yet there do remain distinct possibilities that parts of it were set from his autograph or from copies he had corrected in preparation for this collected edition, and to this extent Jonson’s intentions are detectable in a number of ways. It does seem likely that he intended to publish a third collection and he may well have started to work on it. The critical problem is to assess how far this posthumous edition is faithful to his intentions.
Participants
The printing of the third volume of the Works was first attributed to John Dawson Jr. by D. F. McKenzie (1972) . The basis of this was that a number of print items in the volume can be found in other works printed by Dawson. The chief of these were the factotum on B1, a damaged upper case H (3A1 and 3I3v), and a number of other display letters. In the following account the attribution is made even more secure, especially with regard to damaged or imperfect italic type, and the watermarks.
Dawson, whose father John was also a printer from 1613 until his death in 1635, was active in the trade between 1634 and 1648, the probable year of his death. He was clothed on 29 March 1637 and from that date his annual output can be estimated from the surviving work attributed to him in STC, though it is always possible that some is no longer known. The annual totals of the extant titles he produced are as follows:
1637 (9) 1638 (27) 1639 (29) 1640 (32) 1641 (21) 1642 (10) 1643 (11) 1644 (7) 1645 (8) 1646 (14) 1647 (12) 1648 (9) 1649 (2)
As some of these were small pamphlets containing only four pages, we should also take into account the annual totals of edition sheets for the years 1637 to 1642 which are: