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Robert D. Hume, Editing a Nebulous Author: The Case of the Duke of Buckingham, The Library, Volume 4, Issue 3, September 2003, Pages 249–277, https://doi.org/10.1093/library/4.3.249
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Abstract
George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628-87), was a celebrated political and social figure in the court of Charles II, best known as author of a burlesque play, The Rehearsal (1671). He published almost nothing under his own name in his lifetime, and no literary holographs survive. Nonetheless, the duke has been credited with the authorship of six plays, nine pamphlets, some twenty poems, and a lengthy commonplace book. Close study of ‘his’ canon reveals quite different sorts of participation in these works: as ‘contributory author’, ‘adapter’, ‘collaborator’, ‘principal composer’, and ‘source of inspiration’. Hence the title for the forthcoming Oxford University Press edition (by Robert D. Hume and Harold Love): Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham.