The Peace Egg Book: an Anglo-Irish chapbook connection discovered - Research article: focus on traditional drama

The explanation for the changes may be that whoever printed The Peace Egg Book "for R. Carr ..." "used blocks in his own possession, but these were not available to Carr when he later "Printed and Published ..." his edition of The Peace Egg or Saint George's Annual Play.... Alternatively, Carr may have wanted to present a visually distinct edition to his customers. The reduction in the number of illustrations may, as seen before, have been dictated by the reduced number of pages given over to the play text in the later production (seven pages as opposed to ten), coupled with the use of a different lengthier text, which in itself must have had some ramifications.

Of the other known editions of The Peace Egg chapbooks, those produced in Lancashire with the title The Peace Egg or Saint George: An Easter Play contain unrelated images. Conversely, The Peace Egg chapbooks published by John Wrigley (c. 1843-52) and his successor Thomas Pearson (c. 1871-94) in Manchester, Joseph Johnson in Leeds (1826/29-47), and Joseph Lund of Bradford (1847-68), all contain illustrations that, while not identical, owe much to Carr's edition of The Peace Egg, or Saint George's Annual Play ..., but not The Peace Egg Book. Slightly less closely related are the editions of The Peace Egg produced by George Buchan of Leeds (c. 1884/86-1913). Those produced by Gage and Gray (1864) and Kay (1866-1870) in Glasgow (Preston et al. 1976b, 72) have no illustrations, and that published by William Willis in Manchester between c. 1839 and 1848 (Hollingworth 1839; Slater 1848, 14, 76 and 281) contains unrelated images (Cass et al., forthcoming b).

In contrast, a number of the illustrations from both of the Carr chapbooks appear in the editions of The Peace Egg, or Saint George's Annual Play ... produced by John Harkness who was printing in Preston, Lancashire from around 1841 to 1880, and subsequently in Howick and Longton up to approximately 1886 (Whittle 1841, 79; Harris Public Library 1842; 1881 Census; Mannex 1881, 105, 333 and 357; Barrett 1885, 144, 405 and 450; Spencer 1948). From some time between 1844 and 1886 (Harris Public Library 1844; Barrett 1885, 144, 405 and 450), Harkness produced at least five essentially identical editions of this work, in some instances the imprint being modified to reflect his change of address (see Appendix 2). Of the ten different woodcuts used in Carr's The Peace Egg Book, four apparently identical images were subsequently used by Harkness in his chapbook. Punch (page two) was used by Harkness in the same position; the soldier figure (page five) appears on page three; the Doctor figure (page six) is repeated on page four, and Devil Doubt (page eleven) is used on page eight. In addition, the image of the "Roman soldier" on page four of Carr's The Peace Egg, or Saint George's Annual Play ... appears on page five of the Harkness chapbook, and the woodcut of Devil Doubt from the same edition (page eight) was used by Harkness as the cover of his chapbook, possibly to make it appear distinct from the Manchester Peace Egg chapbooks while remaining firmly within the tradition of the publications.