Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

John Fletcher

1579–1625

Introduction

Autograph Manuscripts

There is a single known manuscript containing John Fletcher's handwriting: his verse epistle to the Countess of Huntingdon (*FlJ 8), first published in 1929. The manuscript was then regarded as entirely autograph but is now considered to be a scribal copy with a few autograph additions.

The Canon

With one exception, the remaining meagre canon of Fletcher's poems accepted here is based on Dyce (I, liii-liv; III, 453-6; XI, 517-18). A work added to Dyce's version of the canon is the song Hither we come into this world of woe (FlJ 1-6). The ascription of this song to J. Fletcher in Henry Lawes's Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues (1655) probably refers to John Fletcher, and is accepted as such in the Oxford English Madrigal Verse. A possible but less likely alternative author would be the religious poet Joseph Fletcher (1582?-1637).

Two other possible additions to the verse canon have been proposed in Charles Cathcart, John Fletcher in 1600-1601: Two Early Poems, an Involvement in the Poets' War, and a Network of Literary Connections, PQ, 81/1 (Winter 2002), 33-51. The two were published, subscribed I. F., as commendatory poems in books by John Weever. One of them was copied in at least one manuscript miscellany (FlJ 7.5). The other, beginning Methinks I heare some foule-mouth'd Momus say, appears in Weever's Faunus and Melliflora (London, 1600), but is not hitherto recorded in any manuscript version.

Dramatic Works

For Fletcher's dramatic works, his principal claim to fame, see Dramatic Works in the Traditional Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, B&F 1-217.

Abbreviations

  • Dyce — The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Alexander Dyce, 11 vols (London, 1843-6).

Verse

'Hither we come into this world of woe'

First published (anonymously) in Walter Porter, Madrigales and Ayres (London, 1632). Ascribed to J. Fletcher in Henry Lawes, Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1655). English Madrigal Verse, ed. E.H. Fellowes, et al., 3rd edition (Oxford, 1967), p. 644.

FlJ 1

Copy, untitled, in a musical setting by Henry Lawes.

In: A folio songbook, 121 leaves (including c.20 blanks and an index), in contemporary calf (rebacked).

Including ten poems by Carew and twelve poems by or attributed to Herrick, in musical settings, predominantly in a single hand (ff. 2r-63v, 92r-9r, 100r, with a change of style on ff. 64r-5v and in the index probably by the same hand), with 18th-century additions on ff. 81v-7v, 89r-v and 145v-53r, and scribbling elsewhere.

c.1640s-60s

Later owned by Colonel W.G. Probert, of Bevills, Bures, Suffolk. Sold by Quaritch in 1937.

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Probert MS: CwT Δ 4, HeR Δ 1. Discussed and analysed in John P. Cutts, A Bodleian Song-Book: Don. C. 57, M&L, 34 (1953), 192-211. Also briefly discussed in George Thewlis, Some Notes on a Bodleian Manuscript, M&L, 22 (1941) 32-5, and in Willa McClung Evans, Shakespeare's Harke Harke ye Larke, PMLA, 60 (1945), 95-101 (with a facsimile of f. 78r). A facsimile of the volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 6 (New York & London, 1987).

FlJ 2

Copy in a musical setting by John Wilson, untitled.

This MS collated in John P. Cutts, Seventeenth Century Lyrics, MD, 10 (1956), 142-209 (p. 156).

In: A large folio volume of songs in musical settings by John Wilson (1595-1674), composer and musician, vi + 214 leaves (plus some blanks), gilt-edged, in contemporary black morocco elaborately gilt, lettered on each cover DR. / I.W, with silver clasps.

Possibly Wilson's formal autograph MS or else in the hand of someone similarly associated with Edward Lowe (c.1610-82).

c.1656

Complete facsimile in Jorgens, Vol. 7 (1987). Discussed in John P. Cutts, Seventeenth Century Lyrics: Oxford, Bodleian, MS. Mus. b. 1, MD, 10 (1956), 142-209.

FlJ 3

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Lawes, untitled.

In: A folio songbook, in two or more predominantly italic hands, written from both ends, 87 leaves, in remains of contemporary vellum within modern half red morocco.

Possibly compiled in part by one T. C.

c.1641-59

Inscribed (f. 1v) R. Guise [of Abbey] Feb: 12. 1760. Purchased from Thomas Thorpe, bookseller, 17 June 1839.

A complete facsimile of this volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 4 (New York & London, 1986).

FlJ 4

Copy, in Lawes's musical setting.

In: A large folio volume of autograph vocal music by Henry Lawes (1596-1662), ix + 184 leaves, in modern black morocco gilt.

Comprising over 300 songs and musical dialogues by Lawes, probably written over an extended period (c.1626-62) in preparation for his eventual publications, including settings of 38 poems by Carew, fourteen poems by or attributed to Herrick, and fifteen by Waller.

Mid-17th century

Bookplates of William Gostling (1696-1777), antiquary and topographer; of Robert Smith, of 3 St Paul's Churchyard; and of Stephen Groombridge, FRS (1755-1832), astronomer. Later owned, until 1966, by Miss Naomi D. Church, of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Formerly British Library Loan MS 35.

Recorded in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the Henry Lawes MS: CwT Δ 16; HeR Δ 3; WaE Δ 11. Discussed, with facsimile examples, in Pamela J. Willetts, The Henry Lawes Manuscript (London, 1969). Facsimiles of ff. 42r, 78r, 80r, 84r, 111r and 169r in The Poems and Masques of Aurelian Townshend, ed. Cedric C. Brown (Reading, 1983), pp. 59, 60, 62, 64, 66 and 117. Also discussed in Willa McClung Evans, Henry Lawes: Musician and Friend of Poets (New York and London, 1941), and elsewhere. A complete facsimile of the volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 3 (New York & London, 1986).

FlJ 5

Copy, in a musical setting by Henry Lawes, untitled.

In: A square-shaped folio songbook, largely in a single rounded secretary hand, with (ff. 1r-v, 69r-v) a table of contents, i + 69 leaves, in modern half red morocco.
Mid-17th century

Puttick & Simpson's, 2 March 1866, lot 230.

A complete facsimile of this volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 2 (New York & London, 1986).

FlJ 6

Copy, headed An Epitaph on a Child.

In: A quarto verse miscellany, in a single neat secretary hand, 204 pages, in old calf.

Including ten poems by Carew (and two of doubtful authorship) and 24 poems by Randolph.

c.1630s

Thomas Thorpe, Catalogue of upwards of fourteen hundred manuscripts (1836), item 1030. Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9282. Subsequently in the Shakespearian Library of Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), industrialist, banker, and art and book collector, of Providence, Rhode Island. American Art Association, New York, 11-12 March 1936 (Perry sale). A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 188.

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Rosenbach MS I: CwT Δ 31 and RnT Δ 10. The complete volume edited in Howard H. Thompson, An Edition of Two Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Poetical Miscellanies (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1959) (Rosenbach Library Mic 59-4669).

A Sonnet ('Come, sorrow, come! bring all thy cries')

First published in Dyce (1843), I, liii-liv.

FlJ 7

Copy, subscribed J. F.

Edited from this MS in Dyce.

In: A quarto verse miscellany, largely in a single professional hand, with later additions on ff. 58v-62v in three or four other hands, 65 leaves, in modern half crushed morocco gilt.

Compiled by one Thomas Crosse, whose name appears (f. 1*) in An Acrosticke upon my name, as well as subscribed (Tho: Cro:) to a poem on ff. 23v-4r.

c.1630s [-1670s]
To his friend ('You that come by, and chance this booke to see')

First published, subscribed I. F., in John Weever, The Whipping of the Satyre (London, 1601). Edited, and attributed to Fletcher, in Charles Cathcart, John Fletcher in 1600-1601: Two Early Poems, an Involvement in the Poets' War, and a Network of Literary Connections, PQ, 81/1 (Winter 2002), 33-51.

FlJ 7.5
In: A folio miscellany chiefly of verse, formally set out in a single neat secretary hand, compiled between 6 April and 17 November 1604, 80 pages, in modern marbled boards.
1604

Phillipps MS 9062. Sotheby's (Phillipps sale), lot 00. Inscribed in pencil (f. [iir]) as owned on 11 May 1903 by William Augustus White (1843-1927), American banker and collector. Items 185 and 624 respectively in two unidentified sale catalogues.

To the Excelent and best Lady the Countess of Huntington ('There ys not any Sculler of or Tyme')

First published in Samuel A. Tannenbaum, A Hitherto Unpublished John Fletcher Autograph, JEGP, 28 (1929), 35-40.

*FlJ 8
Autograph
Verse epistle, of 38 lines with a five-line prose subscription, addressed and sent to the Countess of Huntingdon, on the first page of two conjugate folio leaves (originally folded as a packet).

In the hand of an amanuensis with Fletcher's autograph signature, autograph one-word (madame) insertion in the subscribed valediction, and autograph address on the fourth page.

c.1619-20

Edited from this MS, with a facsimile, in Tannenbaum (1929). Discussed, some with other facsimiles, in Greg, English Literary Autographs, plate XCIII; in Tannenbaum, The John Fletcher Holograph, PQ, 13 (1934), 401-4; in Greg, John Fletcher's Autograph, PQ, 14 (1935), 373: in Tannenbaum, The John Fletcher Holograph, PQ, 15 (1936), 221; and in Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 52.

Tannenbaum, unlike Greg and Petti, erroneously believed the MS to be entirely autograph.

Upon An Honest Man's Fortune ('You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars')

First published, appended to The Honest Man's Fortune, in Comedies and Tragedies (London, 1647). Dyce, III, 453-6.

FlJ 9

Copy, untitled.

In: A folio verse miscellany, comprising nearly 250 poems, in five hands, vii + 135 leaves (with a modern index), in contemporary calf gilt (rebacked), with remains of clasps.

Including 16 poems (plus second copies of two) by Carew, 19 poems by or attributed to Herrick (and second copies of six of them), 23 poems (plus second copies of two and four of doubtful authorship) by Randolph, 18 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Strode, and eleven poems by Waller.

c.1630s-40s

Inscribed on a flyleaf Peeter Daniell and his initials stamped on both covers. Later scribbling including the names Thomas Gardinor, James Leigh and Pettrus Romell. Owned in 1780 by one A. B. when it was given to Thomas Percy (1768-1808), later Bishop of Dromore. Sotheby's, 29 April 1884 (Percy sale), lot 1. Acquired from Quaritch, 1957.

Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the Daniell MS: CwT Δ 5, HeR Δ 2, RnT Δ 1, StW Δ 5, WaE Δ 9. Briefly discussed in Margaret Crum, An Unpublished Fragment of Verse by Herrick, RES, NS 11 (1960), 186-9. A facsimile of f. 22v in Marcy L. North, Amateur Compilers, Scribal Labour, and the Contents of Early Modern Poetic Miscellanies, EMS, 16 (2011), 82-111 (p. 106). Betagraphs of the watermark in f. 65 in Ted-Larry Pebworth, Towards a Taxonomy of Watermarks, in Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks, ed. Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle and Ernest W. Sullivan, II (London, 2000), pp. 229-42 (p. 241).

FlJ 10

Copy, untitled.

In: A folio verse miscellany, including eleven poems by Carew, in a single professional secretary hand (adopting a different style on ff. 176r-8r), ii + 231 leaves (including numerous blanks), the date 1633 occurring on f. 55r.
c.1630s

The name Edward Michell inscribed later inside the rear cover. Afterwards owned by Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755).

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Michell MS: CwT Δ 8. Briefly discussed (in connection with the poem Shall I die? attributed to Shakespeare) by Gary Taylor in The Sunday Times (24 November 1985, pp. 1, 3, with a facsimile example) and by Peter Beal in TLS (3 January 1986, p. 13); and see also letters on 24 January 1986, pp. 87-8.

FlJ 11

Copy, untitled, subscribed J F. and indexed (f. 3v) as verses by Jack: Flecher.

In: A folio composite volume of separate MSS of verse and some prose, in various secretary and italic hands, written over an extended period, with a table of contents (f. 3r-v), 186 leaves.

Comprising papers of the Skipwith family of Cotes, Leicestershire, including 60 poems by John Donne (and one Problem), the text related in part to the Edward Smyth MS (DnJ Δ 45); also 15 poems (and second copies of two) by Henry King; and 19 poems (and two of doubtful authorship) by Carew.

c.1620-50

Including poems ascribed to William Skipwith (? Sir William Skipwith, d.1610, or his grandson, William, or possibly a cousin, William Skipwith, of Ketsby, Lincolnshire, fl.1633); to Sir Henry Skipwith (fl.1609-52); and to Thomas Skipwith, and several poems by Donne's friend Sir Henry Goodyer (1571-1627), to whom a branch of the Skipwith family was related by marriage. Later owned by Robert Sherard (1719-99), fourth Earl of Harborough. Sotheby's, 10 June 1864, lot 605, to Boone.

This MS is the curious folio volume lent to John Nichols (1745-1826) by the late Lord Harborough and cited in Nichols's account of the Skipwith family in his History of Leicestershire, 4 vols (1795-1815), III, part i (1800), 367.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the Skipwith MS: DnJ Δ 21; CwT Δ 14; KiH Δ 8. Also described in Mary Hobbs's thesis, pp. 119-29 (see KiH Δ 6). For Sir William Skipwith and his literary connections, see James Knowles, Marston, Skipwith and The Entertainment at Ashby, EMS, 3 (1992), 137-92 (esp. pp. 171-2).

FlJ 12

Copy, untitled.

In: A folio verse miscellany, in a single probably professional rounded hand (except for a poem on f. 81r and later scribbling); ii + 81 leaves, in contemporary calf gilt.

Including 16 poems by or attributed to Herrick and 24 poems by Randolph (plus two of doubtful authorship). This MS related to HeR Δ 2 and to RnT Δ 1.

c. late 1630s

Inscriptions including (on a flyleaf) Anthony St John/ Ann: St John/ 1640 Bletso: i.e. Anthony St John (1618-73), of Christ's College, Cambridge, fourth son of Oliver, fourth Baron St John and first Earl of Bolingbroke (c.1584-1646), of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, and Anthony's wife, Ann Kensham (married 1639); (flyleaf) Oliver Beeesfor[d]; and (f. 81v) John Watts. Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 13187. Sotheby's, 6 June 1910, lot 672, to Quaritch. Item 1415 in an unidentified sale.

Cited in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the St John MS: HeR Δ 4 and RnT Δ 8. Complete microfilm at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 72).

Harvard, other MSS (fMS Eng 626 ff. 10v-12r) | Catalogue
FlJ 13

Copy, headed Against Astrolagers and ascribed to John fletcher.

In: A folio verse miscellany, 206 pages (plus blanks), rebound in 1832 (by Charles Lewis) with an independent miscellany (Huntington, HM 198, Part II).

Including 52 poems by Donne (many on pp. 64-109, 167-74 initialled L.C. [? Lord Chancellor], as are some poems by others), 11 poems by Carew, ten poems by Corbett, and 11 poems by or attributed to Herrick, in a single neat hand throughout; the poems dating up to 1637.

c.1637

Later scribbling and inscriptions including the names Edw Denny [presumably Edward Denny (1569-1637), Baron Denny of Waltham and first Earl of Norwich], Charles Cocks, Edward Randolphe and (on p. 162) Thomas Cassy. Later owned by Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833), bibliographer and antiquary (sold in the Haslewood sale, London, 1833, lot 1329, to Thorpe); by Edward King (1795-1837), Viscount Kingsborough, antiquary (his sale in Dublin, 1 November 1841, item 624); and by Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector (his library catalogue, 1880, IV, pp. 1159-64), and sold at Sotheby's, 17 July 1917 (Huth sale), lot 5873.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the Haslewood-Kingsborough MS (I): DnJ Δ 25, CwT Δ 28, CoR Δ 10, and HeR Δ 5. A complete microfilm is at the University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute (Mic S 15). Discussed in C.M. Armitage, Donne's Poems in Huntington Manuscript 198: New Light on The Funerall, SP, 63 (1966), 697-707. A facsimile of part of p. 63 in Marcy L. North, Amateur Compilers, Scribal Labour, and the Contents of Early Modern Poetic Miscellanies, EMS, 16 (2011), 82-111 (p. 101).

FlJ 14

Copy, untitled.

In: A quarto verse miscellany, in a single neat secretary hand, 204 pages, in old calf.

Including ten poems by Carew (and two of doubtful authorship) and 24 poems by Randolph.

c.1630s

Thomas Thorpe, Catalogue of upwards of fourteen hundred manuscripts (1836), item 1030. Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), manuscript and book collector: Phillipps MS 9282. Subsequently in the Shakespearian Library of Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), industrialist, banker, and art and book collector, of Providence, Rhode Island. American Art Association, New York, 11-12 March 1936 (Perry sale). A.S.W. Rosenbach's sale catalogue English Poetry to 1700 (1941), item 188.

Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993), as the Rosenbach MS I: CwT Δ 31 and RnT Δ 10. The complete volume edited in Howard H. Thompson, An Edition of Two Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Poetical Miscellanies (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1959) (Rosenbach Library Mic 59-4669).

FlJ 15

Copy, untitled and subscribed John Fletcher.

In: An octavo verse miscellany, including 13 poems by or attributed to Herrick, almost entirely in a single small predominantly italic hand, 250 pages (plus numerous blanks), originally in contemporary calf, but now disbound.

Inscribed four times on a flyleaf Tobias Alston his booke: i.e. probably Tobias Alston (1620-c.1639) of Sayham Hall, near Sudbury, Suffolk. His half-brother Edward (b.1598) was a contemporary of Herrick at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, while his cousin, Edward Alston, later President of the College of Physicians, was a contemporary of Herrick at St John's College, Cambridge, some of the other contents also relating to Cambridge, besides some relating to Suffolk. The date 1639 occurs on p. 241, and pp. 243-50 contains verses written in two later hands (to c.1728) and some prose pieces written from the reverse end.

c.1639 [-c.1728]

Names inscribed on a flyleaf including Henry Glisson (later Fellow of the College of Physicians); Thomas Avral(?); Horace Norton; Henry Rich; and James Tavor (Registrar of Cambridge University). Later owned by one John Whitehead, and by Dr Mary Pickford. Sotheby's, 27 June 1972, lot 309.

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987), as the Alston MS: HeR Δ 7. A complete set of photocopies of the MS is in the British Library, RP 772. Facsimile of pp. 6-7 in Sotheby's sale catalogue (see HeR 176, HeR 405) where the MS is described at some length. See also letters by Peter Beal and Donald W. Foster in TLS (24 January 1986), pp. 87-8.

Dramatic Works

See B&F 1-217.

Contents