| Content Description | This volume is one of two known manuscripts of Middleton's play 'Hengist King of Kent'. The other is in the Folger Shakespeare Library at Washington, U.S.A.. They are both in the hands of unknown amateur copyists. For further details, and a discussion of the play's possible date, see the edition by Professor R.C. Bald of Cornell University, published in 1938 by Charles Scribner.
This manuscript volume contains the text of the play, written on 42 folios (ff 2-43), preceded by a list of dramatis personae (f 1). The text is divided into five acts, and in acts II and V the scenes are also numbered. Stage directions appear at the beginning of a scene and are centred. Entrances and exits during a scene appear to the right of the text, enclosed by penstrokes. |
| Descriptive Features | Countermark: Grapes surmounted by cartouche containing letters C[heart]AG, 38 x 48 mm (with Type A, conjugate of back flyleaf Type A)
Watermark: Three circles, one above the other containing letters A-TC-+, surmounted by design of three connected crosses, 76 x 24 mm (f 2) (Type B: body of book, consisting of Italian paper with two related watermark forms)
Watermark: Three circles, one above each other, bottom one void, second one contains letters SR, third one contains a cross trefly, the whole surmounted by a design of three connected trefly crosses, 85 x 28 mm (f 7) (Type B also: body of book, consisting of Italian paper with two related watermark forms, other variations of three circles in body of book)
Watermark: Coat of Arms, crowned shield divided in two, dexter divided in four quaterings, sinister is Arms of France, shield is surrounded by palm fronds and has a fleur de lis at base of shield, 110 x 65 mm (Type A, on back (early) flyleaf)
Burgundy leather spine, gold stamped 'Hengist, King of Kent'; modern binder added two front and two back flyleaves; gold graphed edges |