- cid
- bafkreiho5cx4dcpvzmyvc7ayfkoy5nfcx4fqhbhsq6rn4olrybs7rdj2mq
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- 06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0049.jpg
- height
- 2400
- key
- pdf-page-1769752318059-l1n0jzsl2tq
- ocr_model
- mistral-ocr-latest
- page_number
- 49
- size
- 491288
- text
- 42 VENUS AND ADONIS
known. The copyright became Field’s exclusive property, and he soon exercised his privilege of parting with it to another trader. Interesting and instructive as is Field’s professional connexion with Shakespeare, it did not last long, nor did it seriously influence the author’s fortunes for good or evil.
The grant to Field of the Stationers’ Company’s licence to publish the volume was thus entered in the Company’s Register¹:
[1593] xviii* Aprilis
Entred [to Richard Field] for his copie under thandes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and master Warden Stirrop, a book intituled Venus and Adonis. vjᵃ
It is probable that the publication followed within two or three weeks. The first edition bears on the title-page the date 1593.² Copies were certainly on sale in June.
The book was not sold to buyers by Field. The division of labour between the producer and the distributor of books was in Shakespeare’s day well recognized. Title-pages as a rule mentioned the name of both producer and distributor, i.e. of both printer and publisher (or seller).³ Field entrusted the sale and distribution of the first edition of *Venus and Adonis* to one John Harrison, whose shop was at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul’s Churchyard. John Harrison was a wealthy stationer of older standing than
¹ Arber’s *Transcript*, ii. 630.
² A note supplied by Isaac Reed to the Variorum edition of 1803 (ii. 152) transcribes a manuscript memorandum bearing date June 12, 1593, which notes the purchase for ‘xiiid’ of ‘The Survey of Fraunce with the Venus & Adhonay of Mr. Shakspere’.
³ It was usually stated on the title-page, in cases where the printer owned the copyright, that the work was ‘printed by A, and sold by B’, or ‘at the shop of B’. When, as was common, the publisher (not the printer) owned the copyright, the formula usually ran:—‘Printed by A (i.e. the printer) for B (i.e. the publisher).’
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T06:12:17.362Z
- text_extracted_by
- ocr-service
- text_has_content
- true
- text_images_count
- 0
- text_source
- ocr
- uploaded
- true
- width
- 1750