Fulke Greville's Letter to a Cousin in France and the Problem of Authorship in Cases of Formula Writing

The inclusion of ‘A Letter Written by Fulke Greville to His Cousin Greville Varney Residing in France’ in the first collected edition of Greville's works in 1633 generated controversy from the beginning. Even before the book could be distributed, John Varney (Greville Varney's brother) wrote to Sir John Coke, who evidently supervised publication of the 1633 folio, and bitterly protested the publication of the letter. His objections rested on his belief that the letter wrongly implied the Varneys’ dependency upon their affluent kinsman, Fulke Greville. And John Varney hotly charged that the late Lord Brooke had somehow contrived by means of this letter, left among his papers, to clear himself posthumously of accusations that he had once used the Varneys harshly. Finally, Varney claimed to Coke that this letter was never written to his brother at all. The real recipient, he declared, was John Harris, a cousin to the Varneys who was then living in France.