SOURCE: Dunlap, Rhodes. “King James and Some Witches: The Date and Text of the Daemonologie.” Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 40-6.

In the following essay, Dunlap investigates the publication date of Daemonologie through an analysis of the manuscript and dates of events included in the volume.

MS 1125.1 in the Folger Shakespeare Library at Washington is described as follows in Seymour de Ricci's Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada:¹ “James VI, Daemonologie in forme of ane dialogue. Pap. (ca. 1597), 64 ff. (20 × 16 cm.). Written by a professional scribe, but with numerous additions and corrections in the King's autograph. … There is every reason to believe that this is the actual ms. used by the Edinburgh printer Robert Waldegrave for the first edition (1597).” This description needs to be modified in several respects. The manuscript contains in fact three hands—that of the copyist, in a regular print-like italic; another italic...