Stephen Bernard (editor) - The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe (The Pickering Masters)

VOLUME I The Early Plays

This edition would not have been possible without the enthusiastic and continued support of David Hopkins and James McLaverty. It has been championed from the beginning by Mark Pollard at Pickering and Chatto, and later by Kimberley Smith at Pickering Masters, and Rob Langham at Taylor and Francis. I should like also to thank Matthew Bickerton and Zoe Everitt for seeing the edition through the press.

I should like to thank Liz Kay and the Fellow Librarian, Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford, and Elizabeth Adams, the Librarian, and the Master and Fellows of University College, Oxford, for being such convivial hosts. I should like also to thank the staff of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, the British Library, and especially Jill Gage of the Newberry Library, Chicago. I should also like to thank Michael Burden for his assistance with the music in the edition.

Editions such as this take years to produce and there are many people to be thanked: Stephina Clark, our original editorial assistant at Pickering and Chatto, in particular deserves to be acknowledged for her early work on the edition. For help with adorning the edition with such fine images, I should like to thank Gaye Morgan, Librarian of the Codrington Library, All Souls College, Oxford, Colin Dunn of Scriptura, Oxford, Melanie Leung of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, and Solveig Burton. The English Faculty at the University of Oxford has supported this edition from the start and given me all the personal and institutional support it could have done, for which I should like to thank especially Lindsay Rudge, Rachael Sanders, Katie MacCurrach, Rebecca Costello, Luke Bradshaw, Sadie Slater, and, last but not least, Seamus Perry.

As always, I owe a great personal debt to Abigail Williams, Sos Eltis, and Andrea Cipriani. My friends, whose names are unfailingly and unchangeably listed in my acknowledgements appear once again: Richard Clay, Phoebe Griffith, Isadora and Hector Clay, Felicity James, and most of all, Hugo Evans. Those whose names are this time missed out are, fortunately, my editors on this edition. I would like, however, to pay especial thanks to Michael Caines, for having the faith to embark with me on this edition five years ago; I could not have done this without him.

For their constant support and their ability to be there I should like particularly to pay tribute to my late father, Gerard, and to thank my mother, Margaret, and my sister, Helen.

Stephen Bernard
Oxford

I am grateful to the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading for providing funding towards the completion of this project, and a stimulating and supportive environment in which to carry it out. The rehearsed reading of The Fair Penitent directed by Colin Blumenau at RADA in January 2014 helped me to think about this play in new ways. Librarians at Worcester College, Oxford, Lincoln College, Oxford, and the Bodleian Library have been unfailingly helpful and generous. I must single out Maria Franchini of the Bodleian Library and Abbie Weinberg of the Folger Shakespeare Library for their special assistance. Kate Shaw and Joseph Hone were first-class research assistants. Ros Ballaster, Paddy Bullard, and the other editors of The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe offered excellent advice at all times; I am grateful for their scholarly rigour, good humour, and their collegiality. This project could not have been completed without the enduring support of Anne and Frank Rees. Paddy, Clem, Louis, and Connie Bullard made life rich and wonderful during its progress.

Rebecca Bullard
Reading

I am grateful to the Faculty of Arts and the School of Humanities at the University of Bristol, who helped to fund some of the work for this project. Staff at the Bodleian and British Libraries, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library, and the State Library of South Australia have been gracious in their assistance. In particular I would like to thank Ariel Evans at the Harry Ransom Center for her alacrity and efficiency. The collegiality, generosity and good humour of my fellow editors of Rowe have made the process a pleasure. Kyle McGee, Ian Calvert and Joe Lockwood were invaluable in supplying information on specific points, and Mary Ann ODonnell was generous in sharing her work ahead of publication. Hazel Wilkinsons knowledge of the work of the printer John Watts enabled his identification as the probable printer of Tamerlane . Jim McLaverty has patiently borne enquiries regarding Jonas Browne, amongst other things, for which virtue, and his guidance more generally, I am thankful. I am indebted to the previous editors of Tamerlane : J. R. Sutherland, Landon C. Burns and J. Douglas Canfield. Finally, thank you to Chlo, for doing all the packing.

John McTague
Bristol

It is with gratitude I acknowledge the help I have received while working on this edition of Nicholas Rowes plays and poems from Laura Baggaley, Elizabeth Eger, Sonia Massai, reading room staff at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Library in London, and my forgiving colleagues at the Times Literary Supplement . For further advice and assistance, I thank A. S. G. Edwards and Brian Vickers. This edition would not exist without the exemplary guidance of Stephen Bernard, and I am especially in his debt for that.