Turpines Story: A Revised Collation

Abstract

THE recent review in this journal of my EETS edition of Turpines Story (N&Q, ccli (2006), 366–7) supposes two typographical errors on p. xiii, in the collation of the manuscript in which Turpines Story is found (San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 28,561). For the first, ‘after f. 320’, the corrected reading should indeed be ‘after f. 319’. As for the second, concerning the 43rd (and final) quire of the manuscript, its enumeration as ‘4310’ is correct and should not, as suggested by the review, be changed to ‘438’. Nevertheless, the rest of my account of the 42nd and 43rd – that is, those quires containing Turpines Story, fos 326r–337v– needs to be revised. I offer the following revision as a result of recently relocating near the Huntington and being able to reinspect the binding at first hand. Unless this large manuscript is disassembled for repair some time hence, collation of these quires will always be difficult. With few exceptions the sewing is tight, and confirmation of the material contiguity of most bifolia and stubs is hampered because they are torn and have receded along their folds at head and tail. The matching stub for fo 334, for instance, is so narrow at the head that it has been pressed down far enough into its gutter to make the folio look at first glance like a singlet; at the tail the stub is absent altogether, having torn away along the fold. In other instances, stubs are cut so close into the gutter that they taper out of view, and their apparent re-emergence elsewhere in the gutter turns out to be that of entirely different stubs. So close, in fact, is the cutting that the remains of an entire quire, between quires 41 and 42, have escaped prior notice.