Munday and the Oxford Shakespeare More

Abstract

WITH reference to the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, the editor(s) of the first edition of the Oxford Complete Shakespeare (1988) write, The basic manuscript appears to have been a fair copy by the dramatist Anthony Munday of a play that he wrote in collaboration with Henry Chettle and, perhaps, another writer. Alterations and additions were made by Chettle, Thomas Dekker, possibly Thomas Heywood, and the author of the pages in Addition II ascribed to ‘Hand D’, whom many scholars believe to be William Shakespeare.1 Seventeen years later the second edition contains a revised version. The basic manuscript is a fair copy made by the dramatist Anthony Munday (1560–1633) of a text in which he may have collaborated with Henry Chettle (c.1560–c. 1607). Alterations and additions were made by Chettle, Thomas Dekker (c.1572–1632), very probably William Shakespeare, and probably Thomas Heywood (c. 1573–1641). A theatre scribe annotated parts of the manuscript, and some of the revisions exist in transcripts he wrote out.2