[DCRM-L] Printing on printed waste

[Deborah J. Leslie]

I'm finishing up the cataloging of two unique works on one half-sheet. One contains an advertisement to a public debate about Vortigern & Rowena (the play by William Henry Ireland purported to be by Shakespeare), to be held 9 January 1797.

The verso is a blank receipt form to be filled in by hand, for amounts "Received from the Right Honourable Dudley Ryder, and the Right Honourable Thomas Steele, Paymasters-General of His Majesty's forces, the sum of [blank] ... 179[blank] ..."

Ryder and Steele were joint paymasters 1791-1800. There seems to be a lot of activity in the journals of the House of Commons in the early years of 1797 about receipts from Ryder and Steele, but I hesitate to date the form so narrowly based on that alone.

What's really interesting, though, is that the printer used waste for the whichever was the second printed. It makes sense that leftover once January 10 1797 arrived, leftover sheets of the handbill were superfluous and could be used to print the receipts.

Does anyone know anything more about this phenomenon? Does it have a name? (It's not two-set printing, which is when two jobs are set together in the same form. Here, the recto and verso are clearly two jobs printed against each other.) I've uploaded photos on Twitter (you don't need an account to view): https://twitter.com/deborahjleslie

Deborah J. Leslie | Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu | 202.675-0369 | 201 East Capitol St., SE, Washington, DC 20003 | www. folger.edu

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