Imagining the Author in Print > Speght's Chaucer
This second edition of Chaucer's Works prepared by Thomas Speght improves on the text as published in 1598. As with the 1542 folio, the title page frames the book's contents as antique. The folio advertises itself as a monumental edition, one which augments Chaucer's biography and adds new works to his oeuvre.
A shining example of Chaucer's gentility is his coat-of-arms. This coat-of-arms is a fictional one. The volume's editor admits that this green and orange device is a matter of “coniecture.”
Unlike the 1598 volume, the 1602 folio contains a series of manicules. These printed hands point to witty sayings, which can be appropriated as commonplaces. The presence of these manicules demonstrates Chaucer's status as a wise, learned, and pithy poet.
In order to assist the reader, the editors supply a dictionary of his “obscure” words. As a result, a reader who may not understand Middle English can try to understand the poet's language.