Photographic Proof the Emendations in the Perkins Folio were in the Folio Prior to Collier's Purchase of It and a Similar Proof that the Emendations are in an English Secretary Hand and not "modern."

Above is a copy of the Alphabet in an Elizabethan Secretary Hand taken from Elizabethan Handwriting 1500-1650 A Manual by Giles Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton (now Yandle) both Folger curators and expert paleographers. Blow is a transcription of the hand in modern type.  Notice that the Old Corrector is writing in a style that the manual would describe as "the secretarie Alphabete"  Dr. Kathman disputes that the emendations are in the Secretary hand, but clearly he either does not know the hand or the emendations.

Below are scans from the Perkins Folio and from the Dering Manuscript of Henry IV.  Judge for yourself.

The above, a scan of a microfilm printout of p. 15 of The Tempest clearly shows the emendation has been trimmed off by the knife of the binder who put the cover on the Perkins Folio in the 18th Century.  This means the emendations were there before Collier saw them.  Arthur Freeman lied about this particular emendation when he reviewed Professor Ganzel's book for the Times Literary Supplement, since Freeman wrote that in none of the cases cited by Ganzel did the knife cut through the emendation.

Now take a look at the two words "Enter" this one above is from the Authorial gloss in the so called Dering manuscript of Henry IV, where have we seen that hand or one just like it before?  That's right, just above in the Perkins Folio.  This emendation in the manuscript of Henry IV is  in an Elizabethan secretary hand.  As, I might add, are all the 20,000 plus authentic emendations in the Perkins Folio.

Notice the Old Corrector's change in Romeo and Juliet to the Folio's misprint, "here comes of the House of the Mountagues."  Most modern editions read "here comes two of the house of the Mountagues." (NV) Q1 reads "but heere comes two of the Mountagues."  However the Old Corrector suggests, "here comes some of the House of the Mountagues."  Some has been written into the left margin by the Old Corrector.  Now take a good look at that letter "s" its not modern "s" it is an English secretary "s", which again proves that the hand responsible for the emendations in the Perkins Folio was, as I have been saying all along, is a hand consistent with the Author's, i.e., a hand which learned its letters in the 1570 or 80s.  It is not a seventeenth century hand.  It is a sixteenth century hand.  In any case it is certainly not a "modern" hand has Freeman claimed.

This is page 93 from The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth (Perkins Folio)  Notice the added stage direction "(Another paper)".  See that "h" it is not a modern "h" it too is clearly a secretary "h" with a deep dencender that sweeps forward.  Now notice the phrase just above, it too is a stage direction and it reads "falles backe" yet here too the letter forms are not Italic or "modern" but clearly "secretary."  Look at that final "s" is "falls" it is as secretary as any ever made and notice the "c" is "backe" also clearly secretary, as is its terminal "e".

This emendation from The Winters Tale (p.290) is also a Stage Direction and it reads "(helpe him"  I don't know if it is the lens of the microfilm reader or the knife of the binder but the fact that it runs the entire length of the page in a perfectly straight line suggest the binder's knife and not a lens which has fall off properties and cannot be made "straight."  It has clearly cut off the last part of the letter "m" in him, as well as the final ")" parenthesis.  Notice also the clear and quite fluid secretary form of both words.  No paleographic authority shown this phrase would conclude it to have been anything other than pure secretary.

This emendation is also from The Winters Tale (p.290) just as the above scan is.  Here the scene has been properly placed in "Bohemia" by the addition of the word in what is clearly an Elizabethan hand.  To it has been added the word "Tune" also in an obvious Elizabethan hand.  Any contention that this wasn't an authentic looking Secretary hand is bound to fail.  That it has been cut thorough by the binders knife in the 18th century means it wasn't Collier.  That its ink has proven of the same type as those used in the 1630s also suggests that it is perfectly real.  It remains an Elizabethan hand who c. 1635 made 20,000 authorial emendations to the Perkins Folio, some of which have been proven to parallel early quarto readings that were not rediscovered until the 20th century, as proven in the case of T.A. See Below.

This emendation corrects a mistake that was not corrected until the discovery of q1 of Titus Andronicus in the early part of the 20th century.  The mistake is anything other than obvious, so it had withstood generations of editors and emendations, including Collier, who rejected this emendation in favor of the original reading!  However the discovery of q1 proves that the Old Corrector was correct.  Notice the "r" in the emendation is secretary in style, as is the final "e".  The emendation corrects the text to read "rauenous Tyger" or in modern spellings "ravenous tiger".  Its right.  This is what Shakespeare wrote.  It proves the Old Corrector knew more about it than we did, until q1 turned up.

The evidence above proves that Professor Dewey Ganzel was correct when he wrote that the 18th century binder's knife cut through emendations that had already been in the text for a considerable period of time.  Since the binding was on the Perkins Folio when Collier purchased it, Collier could not have forged the 20,000 + emendations that this unique edition evidences.   This evidence is in keeping with modern forensic studies of the ink, which prove it similar to other inks of the 1630s.

This means that Dewey, not Arthur Freeman, was correct: Collier did not forge these emendations.

More the Old Corrector's hand is, upon inspection, not only modern, but the hand of a person who learned his letters during the reign of Elizabeth I.  A hand that looks remarkably like the Author's hand in the manuscript of Henry IV, known as the Dering, ms. 

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