The Tragedy of Mariam

So you mentioned that you've got manuscript and printed source for the various different plays, and not a vast amount of modern publishing.

I see one edition from the 1940s, I think.

So what have you found doing this edition that maybe hasn't been revealed before? Because as I say, how you assess a manuscript is quite different from how you might edit a text that only exists in print.

Perhaps I should just set out the textual situation of the plays.

The first two plays exist only in manuscript, and that manuscript is now in the Bodleian Library.

The third play was printed in 1606 and then reissued again in the same year, but with corrections and various additions, some of which are erroneous.

But there is also a manuscript of the third play which is now in the Folger.

However, Leishman, who edited the edition that you refer to that came out in the 1940s, he established pretty conclusively that the manuscript of the second part of The Return from Parnassus is further removed from authorial copy than the printed text.