The Autograph Manuscript

Calderón's autograph manuscript of La desdicha de la voz is preserved as MS Res. 108 in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. In common with other Calderonian manuscripts there, such as those of El mágico prodigioso (MS Vitrina 7-1), En la vida todo es verdad y todo mentira (MS Res. 87) and El secreto a voces (MS Res. 117), it belonged formerly to the collection of the Duke of Osuna, which was incorporated into the Biblioteca Nacional in 1884. The manuscript comprises 63 folios of pasta paper, each measuring approximately 216 mm by 152 mm; the verso side of the last folio bears Calderón's signature and the place and date: Madrid, 14 May 1639. It also carries the dated licencias for performances in Madrid (1 June 1639) and Seville (13 November 1639). The first page (folio 1r) bears the reparto, unfortunately damaged by a tear down the right-hand side; the identity of the actors is discussed in Section 4 of the Introduction, below. The manuscript has been bound in cloth-covered boards with five modern end-papers at front and back, all blank except for one which gives the author, title, and place and date of composition of the work.

The folios of the first act, excluding the first, were numbered consecutively from 2 to 21 by Calderón himself. Those of the second act originally had no numbering; those of the third were numbered by the dramatist consecutively from 1 to 19. On the final folio, the number 63 has been added by another hand in a different ink. In the spring of 1971, further, incorrect numbering was added to the manuscript in pencil by the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional: Calderón's numbering of the first 20 folios has been left untouched; thereafter folio 21 is mistakenly numbered 20, and the remaining folios are numbered consecutively to the end, so that the last folio bears the number 62 as well as the 63 written on it by an earlier hand.

The paper used by Calderón was of two different types; each bears a watermark, which I have attempted to reproduce in sketch form in Figure 1. Unfortunately, it has not been possible positively to identify either of them in the standard works of reference.