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The Basset Table Susanna Centlivre Broadview Press, 2000, vii + 165. $19.95. ISBN: 978-1551116785
The new Broadview edition of Susanna Centlivre's The Basset Table (1705), edited by Jane Milling, is the third Centlivre play to be reprinted in a new critical edition by Broadview. It joins John O'Brien's edition of The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret (1714) and Nancy Copeland's edition of A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718), thus further establishing Centlivre's importance in studies of the theatrical world of early eighteenthcentury England. In common with all Broadview literary editions, Milling's edition includes a critical introduction, a substantive chronology, and appendices (in this case, four) with readings placing the text within a particular cultural and historical context. Milling's editing of the text is careful and light; she has chosen to maintain punctuation and obsolete spellings except where they might impede readability, and she has worked primarily with the first edition of the play kept at the Bodleian Library, which she has "collated" against the Q2, Q3, and Dl versions. Milling has included a substantial list of textual variants and errors at the end of the play; within the play's text, each variation is noted by a f symbol that corresponds to a description of that variation at the end of the play's text. This system prevents disruption of a reading of the play with footnotes describing textual variations, allowing instead those readers who are concerned with the variations between the textual editions to locate and read the descriptions as they choose. The list displays the care and diligence with which Milling has edited the text and shows the extent of her work with the various editions of the play.
This careful editing is displayed further by Milling's selection of texts for the four appendices: these supplementary readings are judiciously chosen and provide information particularly...