Dated 1694 and 1695, the manuscript contains six plays by Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth), as well as three Restoration plays, (Nathaniel Lee’s Mithridates, John Dryden’s The Indian Emperor, and William Davenant’s The Siege of Rhodes). The Manuscript is a fair copy in the hand of one and the same scribe, who writes very legibly in an italic hand, using many abbreviations. It is in Julius Caesar and in Comedy of Errors that the scribe uses the greatest number of abbreviations, in particular ꝯ (con), ꝑ (minuscule cut p for per, pre, or par) and ꝰ (us). There are few typos or strikeouts and the presentation of stage directions is generally regularized: entrances and directions pertaining to business are usually centered, while exits are shifted to the right either on an independent line, or on a line of text. There are, however, editorial corrections in the same hand in the body of the manuscript, that of the scribe, who occasionally adds stage directions (often floating between two lines of text). He also possibly introduces corrections at a later stage than that of the composition of the manuscript. The stage directions obviously added as second thoughts have been marked up as additions. A second category of interventions consists in the occasional addition of another layer of stage directions (mostly in the margins, but not always), in a later hand, marked up as Hand 2, probably in the nineteenth century. Additional stage directions are present in all but two plays (As You Like It and Macbeth). The layering of the stage directions is the main problem posed to the editor: we have tried to indicate as precisely as possible their origins whenever it was possible to deduce them from manuscript evidence. In case of doubt, we have not inserted any marking, however. In Julius Caesar, a third hand has provided a missing word at the bottom of fol. 164v. In Twelfth Night, a fourth hand, that of a French nineteenth-century librarian, has added a title at the beginning on fol. 7r, since the play lacks a title-page; in As You Like It, a folio number has been added, probably by the librarian too (f. 37). Editorial interventions have been limited to a few cases: light emendations have been applied only to compensate for a lacuna in the manuscript (as with the case of a ripped corner) or conjoined words. The scribe’s main emendations and errors have been signaled by editorial notes added to the text and can be seen in the Collation.

Folio, bound in vellum. 317 leaves. Written in one hand in 1694 and 1695, with added corrections in the same hand, and annotations in later hands.

Size 22.2x17 cm

Hand note: Written in one hand (Douai MS Hand 1), with later additions in the same hand.

Hand note: Annotations by a second hand (Douai MS Hand 2). The second hand is smaller, thinner, and more slanting. Probably late XVIIIth or XIXth century.

Hand note: A third hand (Douai MS Hand 3), has added one word in Julius Caesar (fol. 164v).

Hand note: Annotations in a fourth hand (Douai MS Hand 4), that of a French nineteenth-century librarian (likely the first librarian, P.J. Guilmot, librarian from 1806 to 1834) on fol. 1 and fol. 37.