Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 00:11:54 -0800
Subject: Re: PUPT: Can't find-


Hi, again!

	Bil Baird's book does indeed include the story of "Little
Marie" being a reference to the wooden performers of old
Nativity plays in France.  But while I love the book, I'm not
sure that Baird's inclusion of the story makes it definitely
true.  He also includes an English reference to "Italian
marionettes", which Baird cites as the earliest mention in
English, and which he dates to 1573, some 40 years earlier
than the authoritative dictionaries have quotations.  Did he
have materials that were unavailable to the lexicographers? 
It's entirely possible that some collector of puppetry found a
unique handbill, and that the puppetry fans and lexicographers
simply weren't talking to each other!  But  I have no way of
knowing how careful, from a scholarly perspective, Baird was
in his research.

				Spence


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