Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois · George Chapman

I. TEXTS

Chapter 4 of 7 · 3 min read

=1607=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS: A TRAGEDIE: As it hath been often presented at Paules. London, Printed for William Aspley, [B. M. C. 34. c. 12.]

=1608=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS: [&c. A reissue of the 1607 edition, with the date altered. B. M. 644. d. 41.]

=1613=, 4o. THE REVENGE OF BUSSY D'AMBOIS. A TRAGEDIE. As it hath beene often presented at the private Play-house in the White-Fryers. Written by George Chapman, Gentleman. London. Printed by T. S. and are to be solde by Iohn Helme, at his Shop in S. Dunstones Church-yard, in Fleetstreet. [B. M. C. 34. c. 16.]

=1641=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS: A TRAGEDIE: As it hath been often Acted with great Applause. Being much corrected and amended by the Author before his death. London. Printed by A. N. for Robert Lunne. [B. M. 644. d. 42.]

=1646=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS: [A . . . London, as in 1641 edition.] Printed by T. W. for Robert Lunne and are to be sold at his house next doore to the signe of the Crane on Lambeth Hill at the end of old Fishstreet. [B. M. 644. d. 43. A reissue of the 1641 edition with the imprint altered.]

=1657=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS: A TRAGEDIE: As it hath been often Acted with great applause. Being much corrected and amended by the Author, George Chapman, Gent. Before his death. London, Printed, for Joshua Kirton, at his Shop in St. Pauls Church-yard, at the sign of the Kings-Arms. [B. M. 644. d. 44. Another reissue of the 1641 edition, with a new title-page.]

[Baker in his Biographia Dramatica (1812) II, 73, mentions an edition of Bussy D'Ambois in 1616, but no copy of such an edition has been traced, and Dilke, Old English Plays (1814) vol. III, p. 228, is probably right in considering that the entry is an error for that of 1646, which Baker does not mention.]

=1691=, 4o. BUSSY D'AMBOIS OR THE HUSBANDS REVENGE. A TRAGEDY. As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal. Newly Revised by Mr. D'Urfey [quotation from the Satires of Horace]. London. Printed for R. Bently in Covent Garden, Jo. Hindmarsh over against the Royal Exchange, and Abel Roper at the Mitre near Temple Bar.

=1814=, 8o. OLD ENGLISH PLAYS; being a selection from the early dramatic writers. [Volume III contains Bussy D'Ambois, together with Monsieur D'Olive, and Dekker's The Wonder of a Kingdom and Old Fortunatus. A short life of Chapman is prefixed to Bussy D'Ambois. The text is that of the edition of 1641, in modernised spelling. The notes contain some of the variants in the Q of 1607, and explanations of many difficult phrases. The editor, though his name does not appear, was C. W. Dilke, afterwards editor of the Athenaeum, and grandfather of the present Sir C. W. Dilke.]

=1873=, 8o. THE COMEDIES AND TRAGEDIES OF GEORGE CHAPMAN. Now first collected, with illustrative notes and a memoir of the author. In three volumes. London. John Pearson York Street Covent Garden. [Vol. II contains Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, together with Byron's Conspiracie and Tragedie and May-Day. The text of Bussy D'Ambois is, where differences of reading occur, that of the edition of 1641, the variants of 1607 being given (with some inaccuracies) at the foot of the page. Otherwise the spelling of 1607 is followed, and the title-page of the 1607 Quarto is faultily reproduced. The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois is reprinted from the 1613 Quarto, in the original spelling, and with a faulty reproduction of the title-page. The explanatory notes to both plays are very slight, but there is a valuable introductory memoir to vol. I, giving extracts from previous criticisms of Chapman.]

=1874-5=, 8o. THE WORKS OF GEORGE CHAPMAN: edited with notes, by Richard Herne Shepherd. [Vol. I, Plays, vol. II, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, vol. III, Poems and Minor Translations, Chatto and Windus. An edition in modernised spelling, and with merely a sprinkling of notes. To vol. III is prefixed Mr. A. C. Swinburne's Essay on the Poetical and Dramatic Works of George Chapman, the finest and most comprehensive study of Chapman's writings.]

=1895=, 8o. GEORGE CHAPMAN edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by William Lyon Phelps, M.A. Ph.D. London: T. Fisher Unwin. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. [This volume of the Mermaid Series contains Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge, together with Byron's Conspiracie and Tragedie and All Fools. The text is reprinted from the edition of 1873, but with the spelling modernised. There is an introductory memoir containing an "appreciation" of Chapman as a dramatist, and brief explanatory notes are added at the foot of the text.]