This manuscript contains the earliest known record of a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (see the entry for Candlemas, 2 February 1602). It covers the period from January 1602 until April 1603, when John Manningham was a student at the Middle Temple. Other entries within this notebook include anecdotes, poems, inscriptions, and summaries of sermons.
Duodecimo. Modern quarter crushed morocco on cloth boards gilt.
The Harleian Library was founded by Robert Harley, First Earl of Oxford (1661–1724). According to Cyril Ernest Wright, Robert Harley ‘was primarily interested in English historical and political material and in volumes of sermons and theological controversy, sharing in the latter the taste of his Harley ancestors’. See Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972), p. xxxiv.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum (1808), Vol. III, pp. 261-62; Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972); CELM; Hannah Yip.
Written in a small secretary hand. For an analysis of Manningham's sermon note-taking, see Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, 1558-1642 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 40-41.