Dering Manuscript

Scholarly consensus indicates that the manuscript was revised in the early 17th century by Sir Edward Dering, a man known for his interest in literature and theater.

Dering prepared his redaction for an amateur performance starring friends and family at Surrenden Manor in Pluckley, Kent, where the manuscript was discovered in 1844.

[5] Hand I has been identified as that of Edward Dering, who began to compile a redacted version based on the quarto editions he owned before contracting the work out to a professional scribe.

[6] Hand II, therefore, belongs to the scribe, a man named Samuel Carington, who appears in Dering's "Booke of Expenses" in early 1623 for "writing oute the play of Henry the fourth".

[8] Dering's source text for sections of the manuscript based on Part 1 was the fifth quarto of The History of Henry IV, printed in 1613.

His cuts eliminate several characters, including two Carriers, Ostler, Gadshill, Chamberlain, the Archbishop, Sir Michael, musicians, and Westmoreland.

The cuts redirect emphasis from the relationship between Falstaff and Prince Hal and the latter's maturation to the political moments of Shakespeare's text.

[16] The manuscript had been stored for nearly two centuries at Surrenden Hall in a library of charters, books and manuscripts compiled by the first Sir Edward Dering (1598-1644), a man famously enthusiastic for literature, drama and book collecting (Dering boasts the earliest recorded purchase of a First Folio, in December 1623).

Dering therefore prepared the redaction after October 1622, but before the summer of 1624, when one of the actors listed in the cast, Francis Manouch, left Kent.