A New («Princeps»?) Edition of «El castigo sin venganza»

Abstract

In this article we give notice of an unknown edition of Lope de Vega’s play El castigo sin venganza, a suelta or quarto lacking any publishing information. After offering a general view of the context of this tragedy’s creation and the history of its circulation, we examine different aspects of this new suelta: we prove that it was published by a Sevilian printing shop and that it can be dated in 1632-1638 based on its bibliographic characteristics; we evaluate and place this new witness within the play’s textual tradition; we present different hypotheses about how the text reached the printing press based on an analysis of the theatrical companies that performed this play; and we present our conclusions, which include the possibility that this new suelta could be the editio princeps of El castigo sin venganza and what led Lope de Vega to publish his play in 1634, which has been considered until now the first edition of this tragedy.