A Shorte Rule of Good Life: A Handbook for the English Mission

Abstract

None of Robert Southwell's writing illustrates as do the texts of A Shorte Rule of Good Life the conditions under which he wrote and the manner in which his work was transmitted by manuscript copy and printed book. Until recent years it was known only in rare printed copies representing a series of editions issued in rapid succession following Southwell's execution in 1595. The first, issued from Henry Garnet's second secret press in 1596 or 1597, was probably edited by Garnet himself. The volume also contained the first printing of Southwell's Epistle to his Father. There can be little doubt that ‘The Preface to the Reader’ preceding the Rule, though unsigned, was written by Garnet himself when the grief of loss was still raw. This was followed by two more editions from secret presses in England and further editions from Douai and St. Omer. The first commercial printing in London was that of Richard Field for William Barret in 1620, when the text was crudely adapted for English readers with Puritan sympathies in a volume that gathered together verse and prose already established in popularity, although the author was still identified merely as ‘R. S’.