’ ‘ ’ SHAKESPEARE S LADY EDITORS The basic history of the Shakespearean editorial tradition is familiar andwell-established.Fornearlythreecenturies,men–mostofthem white and financially privileged – ensconced themselves in private and hard-to-access libraries, hammering out ‘their’ versions of Shakespeare’stext.Theyproducedenormous,learnèdtomes,monu- ments to their author’s greatnessand their own reputations. What ifthis isnot the whole story? Abold,revisionist,andalternativeversionofShakespeareaneditorial history, this book recovers the lives and labours of almost seventy womeneditors.Itchallengesthereceivedwisdomthat,whenitcame toShakespeare,theeditorialprofessionwasentirelymale-dominated until the late twentieth century. In doing so, it demonstrates that taking these women’s work seriously can transform our understand- ingofthehistoryofediting,ofthenatureofeditingasanenterprise, and ofhowwe read Shakespeare in history.  .  completedherPhDattheUniversityofCambridge in . She is a co-editor of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s revised edition of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, as well as an active theatre practitioner. ’ SHAKESPEARE S ‘ ’ LADY EDITORS A New History of the Shakespearean Text MOLLY G. YARN UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridge,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,thFloor,NewYork,,USA WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,,Australia –,rdFloor,Plot,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,NewDelhi–,India PenangRoad,#–/,VisioncrestCommercial,Singapore CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/ :./ ©MollyG.Yarn Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJBooksLimited,PadstowCornwall AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData :Yarn,MollyG.,author. :Shakespeare’s‘ladyeditors’:anewhistoryoftheShakespeareantext/MollyG.Yarn. :Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,.| Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. :(print)|(ebook)| (hardback)|(paperback)|(epub) ::Shakespeare,William,-–Criticism,Textual.|Drama–Editing–History.| Womeneditors–History.|Womeneditors–GreatBritain–Biography.|Womeneditors–United States–Biography.|Shakespeare,William,-–Bibliography.|BISAC:LITERARY CRITICISM/European/English,Irish,Scottish,Welsh|LCGFT:Literarycriticism. :.(print)|(ebook)|./–dc LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/ LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/ ----Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. For Lisa and Douglas Yarn, insightful critics and editors, and even better parents. – No story is the same to us after a lapse of time or, rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. – George Eliot Contents List of Figures page x Acknowledgements xii A Note on Citations xv List of Abbreviations xvi Prologue: The Mystery of Mrs Valentine   ‘We Have Lost Our Labour’: Recovering Women Editors of Shakespeare   ‘It Is My Lady’s Hand’: Female Collaborators and Ambiguous Literary Labour  Sidenote: On Women Editing Not-Shakespeare (or Not Editing)   ‘Give Ear, Sir, to My Sister’: Women Editors and Scholarly Networks in America  Sidenote: A Primer on Early Student Editions of Shakespeare   ‘This Story the World May Read in Me’: Biography and Bibliography   ‘We Few, We Happy Few’: Women and the New Bibliography  Epilogue  Appendices  Works Cited  Index  ix