SOURCE: Davis, Richard Beale. “Sandys's Song of Solomon: Its Manuscript Versions and Their Circulation.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 50 (1956): 328-41.

In the following essay, Davis analyzes Sandys's intent in writing his paraphrase of the Song of Solomon, the manner of and motive for circulating the poem in manuscript, the reason for the delay in its publication, and the probability that there was a lost additional printed version of the poem.

The ten known printed and manuscript texts of George Sandys' A Paraphrase upon the Song of Solomon (1641) present several problems regarding this particular poem and offer interesting suggestions as to seventeenth-century custom in the circulation of unpublished verse. Among the matters to be considered are the author's intent as to text, the manner of and motive for circulating the poem in manuscript, the reasons for the delay in printing this particular portion of a metrical paraphrase...