Henslowes Diary Text PDF Download

From the beginning of the INTRODUCTION - History of the MS.: OF all documents illustrating the external history of the Elizabethan drama the most important that has escaped the ravages of time is undoubtedly the volume of miscellaneous accounts and memoranda commonly known as ''Henslowe''s Diary.'' The volume was first used by a certain John Henslowe for the entry of accounts of the felling and disposal of timber and other matters relating to Ashdown Forest. His accounts belong to the years 1576 to 1581. After this the book appears to have been laid by for some time, for we next find it in use by Philip Henslowe in London early in 1592. By him it was used for the entry of a variety of accounts and memoranda relating both to private affairs and to business transactions, dramatic and other, during the following eighteen years. The latest entry dates from 1609. In the meantime Edward Alleyn, who had married Henslowe''s step-daughter, retired from the stage about 1604, and some ten years later he founded the College of God''s Gift at Dulwich. Into his hands Henslowe''s papers, the Diary among them, passed, presumably on the latter''s death in 1616, and they thus found their way into the library of the College. Here they remained unmolested for more than a century and a half. It was not till 1780 that their existence became known to Edmond Malone, and when he then approached the authorities of Dulwich, the Diary proved to have been mislaid. Shortly before 1790, however, the MS. was discovered and entrusted to Malone, who was then engaged upon his ''Variorum'' edition of Shakespeare. He caused a transcript of such portions as he deemed of importance to be prepared, and of this he printed an abstract in the appendix to the ''History of the Stage'' prefixed to his edition (vol. I pt. ii. p. 288), with the addition of a few other documents from the same source. This transcript was collated with the original by Malone himself, and contains a variety of notes and corrections in his hand. He possibly intended to make more extended use of it in the revised edition of his Shakespeare, for which he spent many years collecting material, but which he left to James Boswell the younger to bring out after his death. Malone, it would appear, kept the original in his possession till his death in 1812, when it was returned to Dulwich by his literary executor." Boswell, however, when he published the revised ''Variorum'' of 1821 (vol. III. p. 295), appears merely to have reprinted the extracts as they stood in Malone''s previous edition, though the transcript was in his possession at the time and appeared in the sale of his books in 1825 (No. 3141). The transcript reappeared in the Heber sale, whence it passed into the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and after his death again came into the market in 1895. On this last occasion it was purchased, on the recommendation of Dr. Warner, by the Governors of Dulwich College, and now forms part of that library. The next person, so far as is known, to make use of the MS. was J. P. Collier, who had recourse to it when engaged on his History of Dramatic Poetry (1831), and reprinted the whole, so far as it relates to dramatic affairs, for the Shakespeare Society in 1845. Since Collier''s edition appeared many scholars have inspected the volume either for the sake of the evidence it supplies concerning the conditions of the Elizabethan drama, or else attracted by the controversy which long raged round certain entries which were alleged to have been forged in it. The volume was described, and a careful though not quite complete list of the forgeries given, by Dr. G. F. Warner in his invaluable Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn''s College of God''s Gift at Dulwich (1881). Finally, at the suggestion of Mr. A. H. Bullen, I applied, in the autumn of 1902, for permission from the Governors of the College to have the MS. temporarily deposited at the British Museum...