SOURCE: Kelsall, Malcolm. Introduction to Thomas Otway: Venice Preserved, edited by Malcolm Kelsall, pp. xi-xxii. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969.

In the following essay, Kelsall probes the texts that influenced Venice Preserv'd, considers its relation to the political intrigue and environment in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and demonstrates that Otway's flexible script that can be adapted to suit any given era.

The only edition of Venice Preserved to appear in Otway's lifetime was the quarto of 1682 printed for Joseph Hindmarsh and recorded in The Term Catalogues for Easter (May) of that year. This is the basis of the present edition. The copy-text is from the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Mal. B. 272). This has been collated with the “variant” first quarto in Bodley (in which the final “e” is omitted from “theatre” on the title page), but no substantive variants have been found. There were two issues...