Contents:

 

Using the Basic Search

Basic Search contains some of the most frequently used search fields: Title, Author (Modern Attribution), Company (Playbook Attribution), Theater (Playbook Attribution), Stationer, Greg Number, and STC/Wing Number. You may search on one field alone or two fields in combination (‘AND’). Basic Search always searches all the records in DEEP--that is, all playbooks printed through (and including) 1660.

Select your search field with the drop-down box. When you do so, another box will pop-up below the search field, allowing you either to select the search term from a second drop-down menu or to enter text freely.

With free-text searches, you may search for a specific string by enclosing text in quotation marks; you may use an asterisk as a wildcard at the end of words, so searching for "humo*" will hit all records that contain "humor," "humour," "humors," "humorous," etc.; and you may use a minus sign before a word as a NOT function, so searching for "henry -fourth" will yield only those results that do have "henry" but do not have "fourth" in them.

Once your search yields its results, you may “View/Modify Your Search” by clicking the link at the top of the Results Display.

 

Using the Advanced Search

Advanced Search works like Basic Search but with greatly increased functionality. All the search fields are available, and you can search on as many fields as you like, using both ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ combinations. To search using ‘OR’, enter your search terms on the same row, in the left and right columns; to search using ‘AND’, enter your search terms on separate rows, down a single column. If you use both ‘OR’ and ‘AND’ in combination, the dotted lines indicate how DEEP will parse your search, first looking for either of the terms joined by ‘OR’ on a single line, and then limiting the results to only those records that also match the term given below the dotted line and joined by ‘AND’.

Advanced Search also allows you to search either all the records or a subset thereof. Use the check boxes to select the universe of records you would like to search.

Once your search yields its results, you may ‘View/Modify Your Search” by clicking the link at the top of the Results Display.

 

Types of Records

In Advanced Search, you may choose to search all records in DEEP, or you may search only subsets. DEEP contains three types of records that make up these subsets:

  • Single-Play Playbooks make up the great majority of DEEP;
  • Collections are books that contain plays, sometimes many (as in the Shakespeare folio), sometimes only a few (as in “small” collections like 1 & 2 Tamburlaine), and sometimes only a single play among non-dramatic texts (as in Sidney's Arcadia);
  • Plays in Collection were not published as books themselves, but only as parts of Collections. All searches for Plays in Collection refer only to the information and features contained within the Play in Collection itself, not to those of the Collection in which it appears. Thus, the record for Twelfth Night as it appears in the Shakespeare First Folio does not include any Genre (Playbook Attribution), even though the First Folio itself does contain title-page attributions of comedy, tragedy, and history; the record for Epicoene in the Jonson folio of 1616, however, does contain a genre attribution of comedy, since this forms part of the title page of the Play in Collection itself.
 

Understanding the Search Fields

Title: free-text search by keyword in modernized spelling.

All Title-Page Text (Modern Spelling): free-text search of modernized transcriptions of all title pages in DEEP.

All Title-Page Text (Old-Spelling): free-text search of original-spelling transcriptions of all title pages in DEEP.

Author (Modern Attribution): drop-down search of all the authors in DEEP, based on modern attributions of authorship.

Author (Playbook Attribution): drop-down search of all the title-page author attributions in DEEP (even where they may be erroneous according to modern scholarly attributions); attributions have been standardized to full names if any portion of the full name appears on the title page, or to initials if only they appear. Also allows searches for any author attribution or no attribution.

Authorial Status (Playbook Attribution): drop-down search, in standardized form, of title-page attributions of some form of elevated status to the author, ranging from “student” to “M.A.” to “Countess,” and so on; also allows searches for any authorial status attribution or no attribution.

Company (First Production): drop-down search of modern attributions of the professional playing company that initially performed the play, with company names standardized. This search returns only plays performed by a professional company.

Company (Playbook Attribution): drop-down search of title-page attributions of a playing company (even where they may be erroneous according to modern scholarly attributions), with company names standardized. Also allows searches for any company attribution or no attribution.

Theater (Playbook Attribution): drop-down search, in standardized form, of title-page attributions of a theater or playing space (even where they may be erroneous according to modern scholarly attributions); all performances “before the king/queen” or “at court” or “at Whitehall” are represented by the attribution “before the Court”; also allows searches for any theater attribution or no attribution, and for indoor or outdoor theater attributions.

Genre (Annals): drop-down search of play genres, based on the classifications in Annals; these genres are somewhat simplified in the search drop-down (e.g., “History”), but the full genre as listed in Annals will appear in the results display (e.g., “Biblical History”).

Genre (Playbook Attribution): drop-down search of title-page attributions of genre; also allows searches for any genre attribution or no attribution.

Play Type: drop-down search of plays classified by their auspices, e.g., Adult Professional, Boys Professional, Translation, University, Closet/Unacted, and so on; also allows broader searches by Professional or Nonprofessional.

Paratextual Material: drop-down search for the presence of different kinds of paratexts, including Dedication, Commendatory Verses, To the Reader, Argument, Character List, Actor List, Explicit, Errata, and Other Paratexts; also allows searches for any paratext or none.

Illustration: binary search (yes/no) for the presence of a woodcut or engraving in the playbook.

Black Letter: binary search (yes/no) for whether the main typeface of the playbook is black letter.

Latin on Title Page: binary search (yes/no) for the presence of Latin on the title page of the playbook.

Stationer: combines the searches for Printer, Publisher, and Bookseller (see below).

Printer: drop-down search of all the printers of playbooks in DEEP (usually indicated in imprints by “Printed by”); for Single-Play Playbooks and Collections, title-page printer attributions have been supplemented by modern scholarly ascriptions where there is scholarly consensus.

Publisher: drop-down search of all the publishers of playbooks in DEEP (usually indicated in imprints by “Printed for”); this drop-down menu also includes all printers who acted as publishers (imprints indicating the book was “Printed by” one stationer but not “for” another), although in the results display such printers will appear only in the Printer field, while the Publisher field will not appear.

Bookseller: drop-down search of all the booksellers of playbooks in DEEP (usually indicated in imprints by “to be sold by”).

Imprint Location: drop-down search of the locations of bookshops that are named on the title page, according to the map coordinates in STC v.3. This search is only for those shops that are actually attributed on the title page, not for the locations of any stationers who may be named.

Date of First Production: date-range search based on the year that the play was first performed (for acted plays) or written (for unacted plays such as closet drama or literary translations), with dates taken from Annals (and to be understood as approximations); will also return playbooks that were printed later, so long as the play was first produced within the dates entered.

Date of First Edition: date-range search based on the year that the first edition of a play appeared; will return playbooks from later dates if the first edition of the play appeared within the dates entered.

Format: drop-down search for bibliographic format specified.

Edition Number: drop-down search for the edition number specified, or for any reprint ("second-plus") edition. Edition number includes both the book edition and the play edition; thus the 1637 quarto of Hamlet is the fifth edition of the book, but the seventh edition of the play, because Hamlet had previously also been printed twice in as a Play in Collection.

Greg Number: searches for the reference number from W.W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, 4 vols. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1939-59). Greg indicated works with only a single edition by capitalizing the "A" edition. DEEP ignores this distinction between capital and lower-case A/a in the initial edition of a work, because occasionally DEEP includes additional editions of a work that Greg thought had only a single edition, and because DEEP provides full information about the total number of editions of a work in the Total Editions field.

STC/Wing Number: searches for the reference number from A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640, 2nd edition, ed. A.W. Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katharine F. Pantzer, 3 vols. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1976.91); and Donald Wing, ed., Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641-1700, 2nd edition, 4 vols. (New York: MLA, 1972-98).

 

Understanding the Results Display

The Results Display begins with a brief listing of all records matching the search criteria, providing the year, author, and title. You can re-sort this list by clicking on the header of each column (click again to reverse-sort), and you can expand each record individually or all at once to see full details. The full record display includes Reference Information, Title-Page Features, Paratextual Material, and Stationer Information. In each section, some items will appear only if relevant to the record: if an edition contains no Latin motto on the title page, for instance, that line in the Title-Page Features will not appear at all; or, as another example, if an edition indicates a printer and publisher but not a separate bookseller, the Bookseller line in Stationer Information will not appear.

Reference Information: This section gives the standard bibliographic references from the STC, Wing, and Greg, as well as a unique DEEP number. It also gives the record type, play type, genre (as classified by Annals), date of first publication and approximate date of first production, the professional company (if any) that first produced the play and the professional company (if any) attributed on the title page, edition number (both of the book and of the play title, in cases where the play appears in collection), the total number of editions printed before 1660 (and their formats), the number of leaves it contains, and the format of the edition. This section also indicates if the book is printed in black letter typeface. Finally, this section provides (where applicable) information on a) variant issues and states; b) the relationships between collections and the plays they contain; and c) plays that appear both in collection and as bibliographically independent playbooks designed for individual sale:

a) variant issues and states: Many playbooks from the period exist in multiple variant issues or states. The Results Display will list only a single one of these variants, thereby ensuring an accurate count of the number of editions that match the search criteria. The record for each variant, however, gives full details of the differences between issues or states and provides links to the variant records (via a pop-up window). In this way, all the information is made available, without misleadingly inflating the number of results.

b) collections and the plays they contain: DEEP links collections to the plays they contain in a similar manner to its linking of variant issues and states. Each record for a play in a collection indicates the title of the collection in which it appears, providing a link to the record for that collection via a pop-up window. Likewise, each record for a collection provides a list of all the plays it contains, each of them linked to the record for that play.

c) plays in collection that are also bibliographically independent: Some plays were printed in editions that were designed both to become part of a collection and also to be sold independently as a single-play playbook. In the Results Display, such plays will appear only once, with a link provided (via a pop-up window) between the record for the single-play playbook and the record for the play as it appears in the collection. In this way, all the information is made available, but the results count remains accurate.

Title-Page Features: This section provides an original-spelling transcription of the title page, divided into portions relating to Title, Author, Performance, and Imprint (including colophons, if they contain significantly different information from the title-page imprint). If applicable, any Latin motto on the title page is transcribed, and any title-page or frontispiece illustrations are described. For Plays in Collection, the Title portion of the transcription is prefixed by the signature of the Play in Collection's title page, head-title (HT), or half-title, and only the material on this page is transcribed (the information on the general title page of the collection being transcribed in the record for the relevant Collection). Our transcriptions record the use of italics (but not black letter), small-caps, superscript, and other display elements, but do not take notice of line breaks, line-end hyphens, the long s, ligatures other than the dipthongs æ and œ, double v for w, turned letters, or borders, ornaments, and devices. Where absolute fidelity to the typography of the title-page is required, users should of course consult the original documents.

Paratextual Material: This section gives information on any paratextual material contained in the edition, including dedications, commendatory verses, addresses to the reader, arguments, character lists (dramatis personae), actor lists, and other paratexts such as errata, advertisements, or illustrations appearing within the book rather than on the title page. For ease of reference, the names of dedicatees are given in standardized and modernized form and thus do not match the precise wording of the dedication itself.

Stationer Information: This section gives the names of the printer, publisher, and bookseller of the edition. For Single-Play Playbooks and Collections, the printer is given even if his or her name does not appear on the title page, if it can be inferred from bibliographic evidence (otherwise "[unknown]" is listed); for Plays in Collection, however, the printer's name is only given if it appears, because the common practice of shared printing makes it unreliable to assume that the printer whose name may appear on the title leaf of the collection printed each play within the collection. For all kinds of records, the publisher and bookseller are given only if their names actually appear on the title page, or if their names can be inferred from the shop sign and location. This section also gives information about any printed license (imprimatur) and provides the names of all stationers who entered the play in the Stationers' Registers at any time prior to 1660, even if the entrance is not directly related to the edition in question. Finally, this section provides any additional notes on the play.

 

Web Browser Information

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