Figuring Out What These Numbers Mean
Finally, the history around the first issue of the first edition is kind of starting to take shape. Thanks to the inscriptions on the first page, this is what we know about quirks in the print, relevant to dating the publication:
Noted Page Numbers:
- Page 273
- Page 330-331 + 334
Page 273
According to Abebooks, “the earlier, uncorrected, state [of the text] with 35 lines of text on p. 273 instead of 30 or 31, with omission of the usual running headline” identifies a first print of the first edition.
Page 330-331 + 334
According to Bauman Rare Books, “several lines in the Satyres on pages 330, 331 and 341, originally containing lines offensive to the king and church, are left blank” in the first edition.
All of the above mentioned pages do contain the blanks mentioned. In fact, we discussed this in class once, and ventured it might have been because of missing materials. However, “editor of this first edition evidently made use of more than one group of surviving manuscripts”, and so one can safely venture that the blanks are present for a different reason.
Here is an excerpt of lines 9-20 (on page 331), covering the blanked out content:
Now like an owlelike watchman, hee must walke
His hand still at a bill, now he must talke
Idly, like prisoners, which whole months will sweare
That onely suretiship hath brought them there,
And to’every suitor lye in every thing,
Like a Kings favorite, yea like a King;
Like a wedge in a blocke, wring to the barre,
Bearing like Asses, and more shameless farre
Then carted whores, lye, to the grave Judge; for
Bastardy’abounds not in Kings titles, nor
Symonie’and Sodomy in Churchmens lives,
As these things do in him; by these he thrives.
Clearly, the claim that the blanked-out lines relate to the king and church is accurate, and moreover, the lines are relatively offensive. Although it is hard to date most of John Donne’s poetry due to the scarcity of published works, the Satyres are credited to his younger persona, probably written while he was living in London in the 1590s. These satires are “considered one of Donne’s most important literary efforts … although not immediately published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through private circulation”(Jokinen). Considering Donne’s social situation both as an ambitious young man climbing the ranks of the British intelligentsia, and his legacy as an excellent Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, it is very likely that the editors of this post-mortem first edition of his poetry collected would respect his situation in British society, deeming the cheekier (or nastier) lines inappropriate for British audience. And luckily for us, this helps specify the circumstance under which this text was printed.
