THE REVELS BOOKS: THE WRITER OF THE “MALONE SCRAP”
By D. T. B. Wood
The genuineness of the suspected Revels Books was supposed by many to have been settled on internal evidence by Mr. Ernest Law’s pamphlet Some Supposed Shakespeare Forgeries in 1911. The controversy was recently revived by the indefatigable protagonist of the doubters, Mrs. Stopes, opposed by Mr. W. J. Lawrence. The most detailed and balanced account of the whole matter may perhaps be found in Dr. E. K. Chambers’ Elizabethan Stage. He is careful to point out the importance of the Scrap.
I must apologise for intruding in the field of Shakespearian scholarship with so little equipment. I do not propose to follow Mr. Ernest Law or Mrs. Stopes through the labyrinth of dramatic representations. The clue I hope to provide may make it unnecessary.
Some months ago I was shown the Books for the first time by two partisans of opposite factions. One in one ear and one in the other told the whole tale. I was drawn irresistibly to a fresh examination for myself. I found no detailed description of the outward and visible points of the documents, and proceeded to make one.
The papers were of the period, and the water-marks easily identified. The paper in each gathering was the same throughout, and the make-up of the packets precluded forgery except on a page originally left blank. I was left, however, with a vague impression against their genuineness on the ground of discrepancies in the forms of letters, on peculiarities in the arrangement of the matter, and the general “woolly” appearance of the 1604–5 play-list.
I saw that the matter was pivoted on the identification of the writer of the Malone Scrap. I tried Malone, the younger James Boswell, and others whom I thought likely, but by some freak of fortune omitted the name of the undoubted writer.
72
