Many sueltas have been annotated in pen or pencil by users. Annotations in brown and black ink seem to have been made by readers and actors of the time. Sometimes, actors kept track of their speaking parts by counting the lines to see how much they would be paid. In these and other instances, we have tried to make note of annotations in the Local Notes field. Marks in pencil tend to have been made by bookdealers and librarians and are, therefore, less significant. Rarely, but as in the case of the first image (Bowdoin’s copy of La vida es sueño), the markings were made by the compositor who was casting off (i.e., marking up copy) in preparation for the next edition. In the second and third images (a copy of Escuela de los maridos in a private collection) the nature of the annotations is less clear; they were likely made by a reader, or possibly an actor. Regardless, it certainly represents an interesting opportunity for provenance research.

See also: provenance, sourcing