13 Extant copies of Q1609…

it all started with a mail to Shaksper, the online scholarly discussion group since 1992, asking if all 13 copies had ever been collated to look for variants in the printed texts.

The answer is: Yes, Hyder Rollins did in 1944 for his Variorum edition.

Hardy Cook, who is the master of that Shaksper domain replied, as he is also responsible with Ian Lancashire for the online Folger copy, with two more links to extant Quartos in British hands. I found a fourth at the ever useful UVIC site using the Huntington Library Quarto. And as i realise now this post is the 20 May, 2008: 399 years after publication!

As Hardy and Ian note:

‘The 1609 quarto entitled Shake speares Sonnets was published by Thomas Thorpe, printed by George Eld, and sold by William Aspley and William Wright. On May 20, 1609, Thomas Thorpe was granted a license to publish “a Booke called Shakespeares sonnettes” as this entry in the Stationer’s Register attests:

“Thomas Thorpe Entred for his copie vnder thandes of master Wilson and master Lownes Warden a Booke called Shakespeares sonnettes” (qtd. in Chambers 1.556). The ensuing quarto of Shake speares Sonnets is the only complete edition of the sonnets and of A Lovers Complaint published in the author’s lifetime. It is also the only printed source and the only surviving text for all but two sonnets and the complaint.

To print his edition, Thorpe enlisted George Eld. To sell it, Thorpe selected William Aspley, whose shop was then at the sign of The Parrot in St. Paul’s Cross Churchyard, and William Wright, whose shop was at Christ’s Church Gate near Newgate. Sidney Lee speculates that the two booksellers split the copies equally:

The booksellers arranged that one half of the copies should bear one of their names in the imprint, and the other half should bear the other’s name. The even distribution of the two names on the extant copies suggests that the edition was precisely halved between the two. The practice was not uncommon. (31)

‘We cannot determine how many copies were printed, but thirteen are extant:

Aspley Imprint:

British Museum (Greville 11181)
Bodleian Library (Malone 34)
The Huntington Library (Chalmers Bridgewater)
Folger Library (Jolley Utterson Tite Locker Lampson)

Wright Imprint:

The Bodleian Library (Caldecott, Malone 886)
The British Museum (B. H. Bright, C.21.c.44)
The John Rylands Library (Farmer Earl Spencer)
The Elizabethan Club, Yale (Bentinck Huth)
The Huntington Library (Luttrell Steevens Roxburghe Daniel Griswold Church)
The Folger Library (Sir Henry St. John Mildmay)
S. W. Rosenbach’s private library (Lord Caledon)

Without Title Page

The Trinity College, Cambridge, Library (Capell Collection)
The Harvard University Library (W. A. White) (Cf. Rollins 2.1 2)’

So far the links to the original 13 Quartos!

Hardy also found something for all those typeface lovers out there:

‘ I started Googling and discovered online an amazing Early Modern typeface package — 17C Print OT. I purchased this font pack from Crazy Diamond Design, a company that specializes

“in typefaces representing historical forms of handwriting and printing, used throughout the British Isles in the past two millennia”.

Further I have been revising the blog to reflect a more structured analysis of the issues surrounding Shakespeare and his Plays and Sonnets, his education, and his life and times. I will link as many original sources as possible. Just about to add Holinshed’s Chronicles.