Columbus, the play of: Difference between revisions

(Created page with "Falsely attributed to Anon. (falsely attributed to 1595) NB This purported lost play is a '''hoax'''. It is listed here simply to document that it is indeed inauthen...")
 
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Falsely attributed to [[Anon.]] (falsely attributed to [[1595]])
Falsely attributed to [[Marston, John]] (falsely attributed to [[1603]])


NB This purported lost play is a '''hoax'''.  It is listed here simply to document that it is indeed inauthentic.
NB This purported lost play is a '''hoax'''.  It is listed here simply to document that it is indeed inauthentic.
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==Historical Records==
==Historical Records==


An interpolated entry at the bottom of one of the pages of the manuscript of Henslowe's ''Diary'':
In 1841 John Payne Collier described an undated letter in the archives at Dulwich College, in which John Marston wrote to Philip Henslowe asking for a payment of £20 in connection with the “playe of Columbus” which he was then writing. The letter is indeed to be found in the archives at Dulwich (MS i.103), but it is a complete forgery by Collier himself, carefully modelling its handwriting and language upon the Marston manuscripts that were available to him.  
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[[category:Dulwich College]]
:18 of maye 1595… Rd at galfrido & Bernardo… xxxi<sup>s</sup>. (Foakes ed., ''Diary'', 28.)<br>
 
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:MS_VII_f11v_detail.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br>
MS VII, f11v (detail), © David Cooper and reproduced with kind permission of the Governors of Dulwich College. No further reproduction permitted.<br>[[category:Dulwich College]]
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The entry was not reported by [[WorksCited|Malone]], since it was not actually in the ''Diary'' when Malone saw it.  It was written in by the forger J. P. [[WorksCited|Collier]], who then reported it in his own edition of the ''Diary''.  It was recognized as Collier's own forgery within his own lifetime, and is categorized as such by the subsequent editors of the ''Diary'', [[WorksCited|Greg I. pp. xxxviii; 22]]; and [[WorksCited|Foakes, p. 28 n6]].
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==Theatrical Provenance==
==Theatrical Provenance==
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==


Collier clearly intended it to look like an adaptation of the 1570 poem ''Galfrido and Bernardo'', discussed by Mike Pincombe  [http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/origins/DisplayServlet?id=drout7241.5&type=print here]. 
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==Critical Commentary==
==Critical Commentary==


This forgery was caught fairly early on, but it had already made it into some reference works besides Collier's own edition - for instance, J. O. Halliwell-Phillips's ''Dictionary of Old English Plays'' (1860), 105-6. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DZEUAAAAQAAJ&q=galfrido#v=snippet&q=galfrido&f=false GoogleBooks]   
James Orchard Halliwell cited this letter, using it as biographical evidence in the Introduction to his 1856 edition of ''The Works of John Marston''. Halliwell also included the supposed play in his ''Dictionary of Old English Plays'' (1860), 55. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DZEUAAAAQAAJ] The letter was also reprinted in its entirety in Edwin Percy Whipple’s The ''Literature of the Age of Elizabeth'' (1869) 127, from where it made its way into other sources, including, most recently, Harold Bloom, ed., ''The New Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism'' (1986), 1299.<br><br> In 1860 and 1861, the fraud was exposed by N.E.S.A. Hamilton and C.M.Ingleby, who re-examined the manuscript and discovered traces of the pencil marks used to construct it, still visible underneath the ink (Hamilton, 1860, 94; Ingleby, 1861, 2; Freeman and Freeman, 2004, 1034; Tricomi, 1980). As noted above, though, even this did not completely stop the forgery’s subsequent spread.


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As late as 1904 it was still causing W. W. [[WorksCited|Greg I]] needless suspicion about the genuineness of the 1570 poem itself (xxxvi-xxxviii).  The forgery is still occasionally resurrected by new discussions of Henslowe which rely, unwarily, on Collier's edition. <br><br>
The fullest discussion is in Freeman and Freeman, 2.367-8.
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==For What It's Worth==
==For What It's Worth==
It's not.
 
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==Works Cited==
==Works Cited==


<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Freeman, Arthur and Janet Ing Freeman. ''John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century''. 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Freeman, Arthur and Janet Ing Freeman. ''John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century''. 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004.</div>
Whipple, Edwin Percy. ''Literature of the Age of Elizabeth'' (1869)
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Site created and maintained by [[Matthew Steggle]], Sheffield Hallam University; updated 18 May 2015.
Site created and maintained by [[Matthew Steggle]], University of Bristol: updated 18/12/2020.
[[category:all]][[category:Matthew Steggle]][[category:forgery]][[category:Philip Henslowe]][[category:Ghost lost plays]]
[[category:all]][[category:Matthew Steggle]][[category:forgery]][[category:Philip Henslowe]][[category:Ghost lost plays]]
[[category:John Payne Collier]][[category:Update]]
[[category:John Payne Collier]]

Revision as of 12:00, 18 December 2020

Falsely attributed to Marston, John (falsely attributed to 1603)

NB This purported lost play is a hoax. It is listed here simply to document that it is indeed inauthentic.

Historical Records

In 1841 John Payne Collier described an undated letter in the archives at Dulwich College, in which John Marston wrote to Philip Henslowe asking for a payment of £20 in connection with the “playe of Columbus” which he was then writing. The letter is indeed to be found in the archives at Dulwich (MS i.103), but it is a complete forgery by Collier himself, carefully modelling its handwriting and language upon the Marston manuscripts that were available to him.


Theatrical Provenance

n/a


Probable Genre(s)

n/a


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

n/a


References to the Play

None


Critical Commentary

James Orchard Halliwell cited this letter, using it as biographical evidence in the Introduction to his 1856 edition of The Works of John Marston. Halliwell also included the supposed play in his Dictionary of Old English Plays (1860), 55. [1] The letter was also reprinted in its entirety in Edwin Percy Whipple’s The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1869) 127, from where it made its way into other sources, including, most recently, Harold Bloom, ed., The New Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism (1986), 1299.

In 1860 and 1861, the fraud was exposed by N.E.S.A. Hamilton and C.M.Ingleby, who re-examined the manuscript and discovered traces of the pencil marks used to construct it, still visible underneath the ink (Hamilton, 1860, 94; Ingleby, 1861, 2; Freeman and Freeman, 2004, 1034; Tricomi, 1980). As noted above, though, even this did not completely stop the forgery’s subsequent spread.




For What It's Worth




Works Cited

Freeman, Arthur and Janet Ing Freeman. John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004.

Whipple, Edwin Percy. Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1869)

Site created and maintained by Matthew Steggle, University of Bristol: updated 18/12/2020.