The Thomason Collection: Rebuttal to Michael Mendle

Abstract

I read with great interest Michael Mendle's critique of my work in dating pamphlets from the English Civil War. Obviously, this is an area where honest men may disagree, particularly since so many of our conclusions rest upon different interpretations of an ambiguous manuscript. Nevertheless, I find that I must begin by saying that Professor Mendle has entirely missed the main purpose of my research, and has therefore misconstrued my methodology.As I wrote in my original article, my chief concern was availability: For example, how soon after an event could a pamphlet be available? How many pamphlets were actually being printed (and when) as opposed to what was being entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company of London? In other words, what could a concerned citizen find for sale at the bookstalls on a given morning?The demands of these questions imposed their own limitations, and pointed to their own solutions. Only two day-by-day lists of publications exist: the Thomason manuscript and the registers of the Stationers' Company. The latter is clearly insufficiently complete for the task at hand. Moreover, it is well-known that entry in the Stationers' Registers is not a guarantee of actual publication. We are left with the Thomason manuscript as a difficult but unique source for the answers that I sought.Exactly when the two existing manuscripts were compiled is an unanswerable question. They may have been compiled, as Professor Mendle suggests, when the collection was nearly complete. They may represent a fair copy of notes that Thomason had been keeping all along. It is inescapable, however, that the manuscripts preserve the order in which Thomason obtained the tracts, and do so with far greater accuracy than either the printed British Museum catalogue or the present bound volumes.