IMITATIVE SEQUEL WRITING: DIVINE BREATHINGS, SECOND PART OF THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, AND THE CASE OF T. S. (AKA THOMAS SHERMAN) A Dissertation by CHRISTOPHER E. GARRETT Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2007 Major Subject: English IMITATIVE SEQUEL WRITING: DIVINE BREATHINGS, SECOND PART OF THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, AND THE CASE OF T. S. (AKA THOMAS SHERMAN) A Dissertation by CHRISTOPHER E. GARRETT Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Clinton Machann Committee Members, Maura Ives Paul Parrish Robert Griffin Nancy Simpson Head of Department, Paul Parrish August 2007 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Imitative Sequel Writing: Divine Breathings, Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Case of T. S. (aka Thomas Sherman). (August 2007) Christopher E. Garrett, B.A., Brigham Young University; M.A., Oregon State University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Clinton Machann During the period between 1640 and 1700, over forty works were produced by authors identifying themselves as “T. S.” In the field of early modern literary studies, one T. S. has been particularly important to scholars because of this author’s imitative version of John Bunyan’s popular allegory titled The Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress (1682). This work by T. S., who has become known as Thomas Sherman, achieves minor success and prompts Bunyan to write his own authentic sequel. My research has uncovered an attribution history that identifies four additional texts—Divine Breathings (circa 1671); Youth’s Tragedy (1671); Youth’s Comedy (1680); Divine Breathings, the Second Part (1680)—and credits all of them to a Thomas Sherman. Of the five works attributed to this author, the most impressive printing history belongs to the earliest offering, Divine Breathings, or a Pious Soul Thirsting after Christ in a Hundred Pathetical Meditations, which appears in over 60 printings from 1671 to 1883 in England, Scotland, and North America. My research scrutinizes this attribution history and raises questions about identifying this T. S. as Thomas Sherman. Based on iv internal and external evidence, I argue that T. S. is not the author of Divine Breathings but establishes his authorial identity as an imitative writer who actively participates in the genre of Protestant meditational literature by providing sequels (i.e., Divine Breathings …the Second Part and Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress). v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my committee chair, Dr. Clinton Machann, for his guidance and patience. I am grateful for the time and energy Dr. Machann and all of my committee members—Dr. Maura Ives, Dr. Paul Parrish, Dr. Robert Griffin, and Dr. Nancy Simpson—invested in this dissertation. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Ives for her encouragement, instruction, and continued support from the genesis of the project. I will always remember Dr. Ives for her enthusiasm and expertise as well as her constant, unwavering faith in me and my work. There are numerous other individuals who provided invaluable assistance in producing this work. Although it is impossible to list everyone, I wish to identify and express my thanks to as many of them as possible. Larry Mitchell provided advice and consultations on Victorian handwriting as we compared and interpreted the handwriting of Alexander Gardyne, J. O., and George Offor. I am indebted to the many librarians and curators who corresponded with me via email, made copies and digital images of research material, and assisted me during my visits to their facilities. In particular I wish to thank the staff members at the Ransom, Newberry, New York Public, Huntington, Clark Memorial, Bodleian, and British libraries. Special thanks to Jennie Rathbun (Houghton Library), Jennifer Schaffner (Clark Memorial Library), Linda Graham (National Library of Scotland), Kay Wisniewski (Free Library of Philadelphia); Barry Stephenson (Bedford Library); Susan J. Mills (Regent’s Park College Library, Oxford), and David Wykes (Dr. Williams’s Library, London). At Texas A&M University, I thank vi Candace Benefiel and Lan Yang (Evans Library) and Steven Escar Smith (Cushing Library) for their support and assistance. I am grateful to the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University for providing a fellowship that allowed me to present some of my early research findings at the 2004 International John Bunyan Society Conference in Bedford, England. Because of that trip to England funded by the Glasscock Fellowship, I had my first opportunity to research and examine rare books at the British Library. I extend special thanks to James Rosenheim, Director of the Glasscock Center, for his interest in and support of my project. With the financial support from Texas A&M’s English Department and its Graduate Studies Office I had additional opportunities to present my research at conferences and perform archival research. I also wish to acknowledge those who discussed my project with me and offered advice and expertise. Among those at Texas A&M University include Jim Harner, Margaret Ezell, Douglas Brooks, Howard Marchitello, Donald Dickson, Gary Stringer, Nandra Perry, and Hilaire Kallendorf. In addition, I am thankful to those whom I corresponded and/or visited with about my research: Kate Narveson, Christopher Hodgkins, Jeffrey Kahan, Marvin Spevack, Peter Beal, Patrick Leary, Michelle Brown, William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, and Richard Todd. My research was benefited by the generous assistance of John J. Morrison, Editor of the Wing STC Revision Project at Yale University, who provided photocopies of Wing’s manuscript cards and patiently answered my questions about Wing’s work. I have presented portions of my research related to T. S. to the International John Bunyan vii Society, the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies, the European Society for Textual Scholarship, and the Society for Textual Scholarship. I am grateful to those who listened and offered suggestions at these conferences. I am particularly indebted to those scholars at the 2004 International John Bunyan Society Conference who expressed their support and interest during the project’s infancy: W. R. Owens, Vera Camden, Michael Davies, David Paxman, Robert Collmer, N. H. Keeble, and Thomas Corns. Although I never had the privilege of meeting him personally, I will always remember Richard Greaves, who, while hospitalized with metastasized prostate cancer, took the time to reply to my e-mail query (via the help of his wife) regarding T. S. shortly before his death. I am grateful to my companion, Brenda, for her faith in me and for how she has patiently endured our lengthy pilgrimage through graduate school. My children— Austin, Alycia, Adam, Amy, Anna, and Amber—have also been lovingly supportive and flexible. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1 II HOW T. S. BECAME THOMAS SHERMAN: AN ATTRIBUTION NARRATIVE ................................................. 8 III DIVINE BREATHINGS: IMITATION AS GENRE, PARATEXT, AND PERFORMANCE ............................................. 74 IV FIRST AMONG BUNYAN’S CRITICS: T. S., AUTHOR OF SECOND PART OF THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS ................... 134 V CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 179 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................ 182 APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................... 213 APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................... 216 APPENDIX C ........................................................................................................... 217 APPENDIX D ........................................................................................................... 218 APPENDIX E ........................................................................................................... 219 APPENDIX F ........................................................................................................... 220 VITA ........................................................................................................... 224 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Seventeenth-century writer T. S., typically identified as Thomas Sherman, a General Baptist, is known by many early modern scholars as the author of Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress (1682). Of the other works attributed to this author—Divine Breathings (4th ed., 1671), Youth’s Tragedy (1671), Youth’s Comedy (1680), Divine Breathings … the Second Part (1680)—the bulk of scholarly attention has been given to his Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress. This dissertation, however, will provide the first critical study of a text that merits equal attention, Divine Breathings. It is important for scholars to be aware