Bristow Merchant

John Ford & Thomas Dekker (1624)

Historical Records

The Office-Book of Sir Henry Herbert

J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from September 1624, which includes:

For the P: comp: A new P. call: The Bristow Marchant writt: by Forde & Decker 22 Oct _^ ^{1624 1 li.}

(Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduce by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)

In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from hitherto overlooked transcriptions and cuttings from the Ord manuscript, made by its previous owner (i.e. previous to Halliwell-Phillipps) the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn (Beinecke Library, Osborn d1):

The Bristow Merchant. a New Play _^written by Ford and Decker all^d for Prince's Company 22 Oct 1624      1^li

(Jacob Henry Burn, "Collection towards forming a history of the now obsolete office of the Master of the Revells", [1874]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Reproduced with permission).

Theatrical Provenance

The Prince's company. Harbage, working without the benefit of the Burn transcript (see above), presumably interpreted the "P Company" of the Halliwell-Phillips transcript as meaning "Palsgrave's" instead.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy (?) (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

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References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

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For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

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Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 28 March 2016.Category:Prince Charles's (I)