First Folio Period Drama and Printers 1616 - 1630

William Shakespeare The chronicle history of Henry the fift, with his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Together with ancient pistoll London: Printed for T[homas] P[avier], 1608 [1619] In 1619, William Jaggard and Thomas Pavier began printing a collection of ten plays under Shakespeare’s name. When word reached the King’s Men, they petitioned the Lord Chamberlain to order that “no playes that his Majesties players so play shalbe printed without consent of some of them.” Consent was not given to Jaggard and Pavier, but as printing had already started, they issued the plays separately, giving some of them, including this printing of Henry V, false dates so that they could be safely sold as old stock. Bequest of Mollie Harris Samuels

Ben Jonson The Workes of Beniamin Jonson London: Imprinted by Will Stansby, 1616 In 1616, King James granted Ben Jonson a life pension of 100 marks a year in recognition of his service to the King. Jonson thereby became the first official Poet Laureate of England. The same year he edited and published a folio collection that included nine of his plays, as well as his entertainements and masques, and epigrams and poetry. Entitled “The Workes,” Jonson was ridiculed by some of his contemporaries, such as Epigram 269 in Wits Recreations: 011“Play tell me Ben, where doth the mystery lurke, 011What others call a play you call a worke.” Moreover, the works of James I had appeared earlier in the year. But Jonson was eager to present his plays, some revised extensively and some, such as Every Man in His Humour, completely rewritten, to the reading public. Although he may have coined the term “playwright,” Jonson used it only disparagingly and preferred to call himself “poet” and his plays “poems.” This copy was owned by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Bequest of Mollie Harris Samuels

Augustine Vincent A Discoverie of Errovrs In the first Edition of the Catalogve of Nobility, Pvblished by Raphe Brooke, Yorke herald, 1619 London: Printed by William Jaggard, 1622 A Discoverie of Errors was one of four books in the press of William and Isaac Jaggard during the time that the Shakespeare first folio was being printed. Indeed, the printing of the Discoverie was of greater importance to William Jaggard than was that of the first Shakespeare folio. In 1619, Jaggard had printed Ralph Brooke’s Catalogue and Succession, a book of noble pedigrees. In the errata list, Brooke blamed Jaggard for what were factual errors. Brooke hired Will Stansby (printer of Jonson’s works in 1616) to print a revised edition in 1622. Jaggard responded by printing this work by his friend Augustine Vincent, Rouge-Croix Pursuivant of Arms. It is essentially a reprint of the Brooke folio of 1619, with a “caustic commentary” by Vincent and Jaggard’s own defense of his reputation as a preface. This copy was owned by the great book and manuscript collector, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (second iteration).

William Shakespeare Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies London: Printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623 As the monumental work of Charlton K. Hinman has shown, from about February until December 1622, three folio books were in the process of being printed at the printing house of William Jaggard: Vincent’s Discoverie of Errors, Favyn’s Theatre of Honour and first folio of Shakespeare. All three books are shown here. The Discoverie was completed in late November or early December and the next twelve months were spent mostly on Shakespeare and Favyn. Neither was complete by the time William Jaggard died in October 1623. Copies of the Shakespeare first folio generally sold in London for one pound (20 shillings) bound, and 15 shillings unbound. Under a 1611 agreement that required London publishers to donate one copy of each new publication to Sir Thomas Bodley’s library in Oxford, a copy of the Shakespeare and Favyn folios reached the Oxford University binder on 17 February 1624. The Shakespeare folio was sold as a duplicate in the 1660s after being replaced by a copy of the third folio of 1663. Still in its original binding, it returned to the Bodleian in 1905. Bequest of Stephen Whitney Phoenix

Andre Favyn Theatre of Honour and Knight-Hood London: Printed by William Jaggard, 1623 This is one of four books printed by William and Isaac Jaggard during the time that the Shakespeare first folio was in the process of being printed. One of the other books, Augustine Vincent's A Discoverie of Errours, is also shown here. The other two are William Burton's Description of Leicestershire and Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionary. The Theatre of Honour is the first edition in English of a comprehensive account of heraldry in Europe. This work and the Vincent Discoverie were of primary interest to Charlton Hinman in his landmark study of Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio (1964). He found that The Theatre of Honour and the Shakespeare first folio share type and type ornaments, as well as a center type-rule that disappears for five gatherings in the Shakespeare folio, while appearing in late pages of Favyn. Bequest of Stephen Whitney Phoenix

John Webster The Deuils Law-case. Or, When Women goe to Law, the Devill is full of Businesse. A new Tragecomoedy London: Printed by A. M. for John Grismand, 1623 John Webster may have received training in the law at Middle Temple, where a John Webster was entered in 1598; many of his plays contain trial scenes that are central to the plot. In The Devil’s Law-Case, not only a trial but the law case itself is the key element in the play, in which Leonora attempts to disinherit her son on grounds of bastardy. After a number of collaborations, including Westward Ho and Northward Ho with Thomas Dekker, he wrote The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, his best-known plays today. The Devils Law-Case and The Duchess of Malfi were first printed in the same year, 1623, but by different printers. That year and the following marked the high point of Webster’s public life, as in 1624 he was responsible for the Lord Mayor’s Pageant. Bequest of Mollie Harris Samuels

Samuel Daniel The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie London: Printed by Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson, 1623 By 1592, Samuel Daniel had come under the patronage of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. As a member of her literary circle at Wilton, and influenced by her brother’s Defense of Poesy, Daniel produced his first two plays, Cleopatria and Philotas. Hecame under the patronage of Queen Anne by 1604, and wrote his last four dramatic works for her. The first of these, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, began the vogue for the production of elaborate Jacobean court masques. It was given at Hampton Court on 8 January 1604, with the Queen and her ladies playing major roles. Daniel’s works, including the court masques, were first published in 1600. The publication of the Shakespeare first folio may have led Simon Waterson to publish this edition in 1623.