A Textual Crux in The Changeling

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's The Changeling was not published until 1653, when Thomas Newcombe brought it out in quarto for Humphrey Moseley, and both Middleton and Rowley were long dead. Unsurprisingly, no authorial papers survive; editors broadly agree that the 1653 text is rather more "theatrical" than "authorial" in origin, though to what extent it reflects earliest stage practice is debatable. Regardless of its precise provenance, what is beyond question is that the 1653 quarto is the basis for all subsequent editions. The problem that arises here, however, as with many other dramatic texts of the period, is what happens when editors decide that a text is deficient or "incomplete." Here, Hutchings looks at the conjectural emendation introduced in the text of The Changeling.