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- 54 VENUS AND ADONIS
## VI
The small number of surviving copies of early editions.
The strangest fact to be noticed in regard to the bibliography of Shakespeare’s *Venus and Adonis* is that, though there were at least six editions issued in the poet’s lifetime and seven in the two generations following his death, in the case of only two—the second and the sixth—of these thirteen editions do as many as three copies survive. In regard to the twelve other editions, the surviving copies of each are fewer. Of the editions of 1596, 1627, 1636, and 1675 two copies of each are known. Of the editions of 1593, 1599, 1600, 1617 and 1620, and the two editions of 1630, only one copy survives in each case. It is quite possible that there were editions in other years of which every copy has disappeared. But no more singular circumstance has yet been revealed in bibliographical history than that thirteen early editions of a sixteenth-century work should have been traced and only twenty-one exemplars of them all should be now known to bibliographical research. It is not extravagant to estimate that each sixteenth- or seventeenth century edition of *Venus and Adonis* averaged 250 copies. On that assumption it will be seen that 3,729 copies have perished out of the 3,750 printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This wholesale mortality is doubtless the penalty the work paid for its popularity and accessibility. The copies were eagerly read and re-read, were quickly worn out and were carelessly flung away.
Distribution of surviving copies.
The present distribution of the twenty-one copies of the early editions which are known to survive is interesting. Eighteen are now in Great Britain and three are in America. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has the high distinction of
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