Breaking the Rules: Editorial Problems in Dekker and Middleton's "The Honest Whore, Part I".

Abstract

The immediate aim of this article is three-fold: to give a reappraisal of some of the most important evidence relating to the textual history of "The Honest Whore, Part I" (STC 6501, 6501a, 6502); to present new evidence concerning the text of this play; and to assess the relative authority of the play's two principal early editions. Our ultimate aim, though, is editorial rather than purely bibliographical. The most authoritative edition of "1 Honest Whore" now available, that contained in Fredson Bowers' old-spelling edition of "The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker", is (as we intend to demonstrate) significantly flawed, and it is hoped that the findings presented here will provide a foundation for future editorial efforts to realise a more accurate and authentic text of this underrated play. It should also be made clear that this article is, in a sense, a prolegomenon to the forthcoming Revels Plays edition of "The Honest Whore, Parts I and II", which will be edited by Joost Daalder alone. In other words, this article presents bibliographical material which is too detailed and discursive to be included in the Revels volume, but which is nevertheless essential to a consideration of the textual strategies employed in that edition. At the same time, we hope bibliographers and textual critics will find the article to be of interest in its own right.