Rowley, Samuel. When yov see me, You know me. Or the famous Chronicle History of king Henrie the Eight, with the birth and vertuous life of Edvvard Prince of Wales. As it was playd by the high and mightie Prince of Wales his seruants. London: [by Thomas Purfoot for] Nathaniel Butter, 1621. Quarto. STC 21419.

The first edition of When you see me, you know me was published in 1605, predating Shakespeare’s own Henry VIII, another play covering the reign of the famous Tudor monarch. Rowley’s play, in fact, served as one of the sources of Shakespeare’s later and admittedly more famous work. But, although early attention was paid to When you see me, You know me almost entirely because of its relationship to Shakespeare, recent decades have seen renewed interest in it as a compelling piece of drama in and of itself. Although Rowley was necessarily selective about what he included, his plot spans three full decades of Henry’s reign, devoting most of its attention to the conflict with Cardinal Wolsey, whose lines open the play, and the early childhood of Henry’s son and heir, Edward. Performances of When you see me, You know me and Henry VIII appear to have been the only occasions when Henry VIII appeared as a character on the early modern stage.

The present copy of the third edition, unfortunately, lacks the title page (sig. A1) and terminal blank (L4), but is otherwise—and thus textually—complete. The binding is in half-calf with marbled boards and dates from the 1820s. As is the case with so many nineteenth-century bindings, the front board has separated. The margins are generally ample; the trimming occasionally encroaches into the headlines, but only touches the body text on one page, sig. A2v. No letters or words are lost. The recto of the front endpaper contains a nineteenth-century ink inscription indicating the play’s title and author; the verso is filled with a list of the dramatis personae in another similar, though more formal, manuscript hand.

The bookplate of John Duerdin, which bears the motto “Le bon jour viendra,” is pasted down on the front board, which also includes the ink signature of John Genest, dated 1827. Several institutional libraries own copies of other playbooks and early modern works with the Duerdin bookplate. One of these at the Folger Shakespeare Library, an 1820 edition of John Heywood’s play, The Pardoner and the frere, also has Genest’s autograph. There are surely others.

Ultimately, this is a desirable copy of a notable and essentially unattainable Jacobean play quarto. It would, without a doubt, constitute an important acquisition for any institution or private library. SOLD