1
We must thank Professor Gallagher of the Department of Spanish, U. C. D., who first told us of the set; and Professor Widdess, former honorary curator of the Worth collection, and Mrs. McCarthy of Marsh's Library, Dublin, for their help in examining the volumes.
2
El mágico prodigioso, comedia famosa de Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, publiée par Alfred Morel-Fatio (Paris & Madrid, 1877), p. lxvii.
3
M. Oppenheimer, «A spurious edition of the Segunda parte of the Vera Tassis edition of Calderón's comedias», Hispanic Review, XIX (1951), 346-52.
4
J. Simón Díaz, Bibliografía de la literatura hispánica (in progress), vol. VII (Madrid, 1967), pp. 101-4, items 994-1003. Items 994-5 and 997-1003 record the fakes. Item 996 records a genuine Segunda parte, pressmark T-1.841, while the list of copies under item 997 includes two copies of the genuine Tercera parte, pressmarks T-1.842 and T.i.102 (T stands for Teatro, the theatre section, and it indicates an imperfect copy).
5
The Wayne State set is recorded by B. B. Ashcom, A descriptive catalogue of the Spanish comedias sueltas in the Wayne State University Library and the private library of B. B. Ashcom (Detroit, 1965), under individual play titles; the Pennsylvania set by José M. Regueiro, Spanish drama of the Golden Age: a catalogue of the comedia collection in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries (New Haven, 1971), pp. 13-15, although the catalogue does not distinguish fake from genuine volumes. One play, En esta vida, has been removed from volume III of the Pennsylvania set. There are incomplete sets in Cambridge University Library and in D. W. Cruickshank's collection. Some other libraries, including the British Museum and the London Library, have copies of the sueltas which are not bound as partes.
6
Conduitt was judge-advocate in 1711, and a captain of dragoons in 1712; the Table of Establishments quoted on pp. 345-9 of R. E. Scouller's The armies of Queen Anne (Oxford, 1966), shows entries for dragoons in the Peninsula from 1704 to 1712, but no later, so it seems probable that by 1713 he was back in England. He married Isaac Newton's niece in 1717, according to DNB. In 1721 he was elected MP for Whitchurch, Southampton (see Parliaments of Great Britain, 1705-1796). He outlived Worth, dying in 1737.
7
Oppenheimer, art. cit., 350-2. Oppenheimer argued that since vol. II was reprinted in 1726, it would not be a commercial proposition to produce a fake after then. He forgot that vols. VI and VII were reprinted in 1715, so that if his argument is valid, it can be used to bring the terminus ad quem down to 1715. His figure of 1720 is based on the New York Public Library's guess-date for a single suelta. It seems unwise to base an argument on this guess, particularly since no mention is made of the evidence that may have prompted it. (We may seem to be making an error in assuming that all nine volumes were produced at the same time; but there is typographical evidence to suggest that the nine sets of preliminaries are contemporary, and of course the time needed to print them would have been very short).
8
See D. W. Cruickshank, «Calderón's Primera and Tercera partes: the reprints of "1640" and "1664"»', The Library, V, xxv (1970), 105-19. Lucas Antonio de Bedmar may be two people, father and son. From 1666 to 1690, the full surname (including the mother's) is given as Bedmar y Valdivia; from 1688 to 1718, it is Bedmar y Narváez. The two-year overlap may reflect a gradual passing of the business from father to son.
9
We should like to thank Dr. Patricia Donlon of U.C.D. for obtaining xerox copy of this item from the Biblioteca Nacional (pressmark 2-66.971).
10
The B is found on H2r of the Villagutierre (copy in University Library, Cambridge, 7660.b.14); and on 4T2r of the Palomino (copy in University Library, Cambridge, S405.43.b.7.1).