B - A Note on Authorship

Summary

The canon of Middleton's plays has been the subject of a great deal of research and argument in recent years by some of the most eminent scholars in the field. The purpose of this note is not to contribute additional evidence, but to explain why, on the basis of the material research has made available, I have included or excluded particular plays in my treatment.

Some scholars have attributed The Puritan to Middleton, but it still seems to me unlikely to be substantially his. The latest and most detailed argument for assigning it to him is put forward by David Lake in The Canon of Middleton's Plays. But despite the great industry with which statistical material has been counted and analysed by computer, the result seems less than wholly conclusive.

1. The title-page of the original Quarto, published by George Eld in 1607, describes The Puritan as ‘Acted by the Children of Paul's. Written by W.S.’ No evidence is produced by Dr Lake as to why this should be so if the play is really by Middleton. He admits this himself:

Eld's attribution to ‘W.S.’ must remain a mystery; it does not seem likely that it was an attempt at fraud, in view of the other honest and correct attributions of Eld publications about this time. Possibly there was a ‘WS’ involved, who was ‘revised out’.

(p. 117n.)

As S. Schoenbaum has warned us, ‘External evidence cannot be ignored, no matter how inconvenient such evidence may be for the theories of the investigator.’