INTRODUCTION

DATE AND TEXT

The first of Kyd's plays to be published was his undisputed masterpiece, The Spanish Tragedy. Most scholars date it to a period before the Spanish Armada, variously 1583–4, 1583–7, 1585–7 and 1587.1 Had it been written after 1588, they argue, it could hardly not have mentioned this famous victory in a drama that represents a war between Spain and Portugal, especially since Hieronimo presents a masque portraying three English warriors who allegedly defeated the Portuguese and Spanish forces (1.5.23–32).

In 1592 the first appearance of the text in print became the object of an extended dispute between two London stationers, Edward White and Abel Jeffes. Jeffes had got into trouble with the authorities in July, as the Court Book of the Stationers’ Company recorded on 7 August, ‘for that he contemptuously proceeded in printing a book without authority contrary to our Master his commaundement’, and for violently refusing to ‘deliver any of the Bookes’ for official scrutiny. Jeffes was ‘committed to ward’, remaining in prison until December. The book that Jeffes had been printing was Arden of Faversham, which had been legitimately entered to Edward White on 3 April 1592. White, in reply, seems to have taken the law into his own hands by printing The Spanish Tragedy, apparently from a more complete manuscript, according to the claim on the title page of the one surviving copy, now in the British Library:

The tit-for-tat nature of this dispute is shown by the fact that, on 6 October, while still in prison, ‘Abell Jeffes Entred for his copie … a booke whiche is called the Spanishe tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellimpera.’ On 18 December the Court of the Stationers’ Company punished both men: