- description
- # THIRD EDITION, 1596.
## Overview
This section, titled "THIRD EDITION, 1596.", is part of a larger work concerning early editions of Shakespeare's poems. It details the physical characteristics and printing history of the 1596 edition of "Venus and Adonis."
## Context
This section is contained within the [Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, Sonnets, and Pericles (Facsimile Editions)](arke:01KG6S3KNZT62WVVW4VT384KPF) collection and was extracted from the file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). It follows a discussion of the 1594 edition and precedes a section labeled "No. V.".
## Contents
The text describes the transition of "Venus and Adonis" from a quarto to an octavo format with the 1596 edition, noting that this octavo format was not resumed in later editions. It states that the signatures ran from A to Diii in eights, and the page size, though smaller, contained the same amount of type as previous editions, with the leaf count remaining at twenty-seven. The printing was done by Field, and two copies are extant: one in the British Museum and another in the Bodleian Library. The description provides details about the binding and provenance of the British Museum copy, including its ownership by Sir William Bolland, Benjamin Heywood Bright, and George Daniel, and its purchase price at various sales. The text also mentions the existence of a possible fourth copy of the 1594 edition, referencing a note by Thomas Grenville and a leaf from that edition that is now in the Shakespeare's Birthplace Library.
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- THIRD EDITION, 1596.
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- With Harrison’s first edition of 1596, the form of the THIRD EDITION, 1596.
* Hints of a fourth copy of the 1594 edition exist. Such a copy seems referred to by Thomas Grenville in a manuscript note before his copy in the British Museum. He there mentions, not very coherently, ‘a copy sold by Pickering in 1843, which I sold again to buy this preferable [Jolley] copy’. It would appear that Grenville himself bought the Pickering copy in 1843, and sold it the following year, before acquiring the Jolley copy. The Pickering copy, which Grenville judged to be inferior to the Jolley copy, can hardly be identified with the fine Daniel copy which has no recorded history, but which is distinctly superior to the Jolley copy. The Pickering is yet to be traced. At Daniel’s sale, a single leaf (Fiiiij) of the edition of 1594, belonging presumably to a fifth copy, was bought by Halliwell for £2 1s. 0d. and was presented by him to the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Library at Stratford-on-Avon, where it is on exhibition. It contains ll. 907–54, beginning ‘A thousand spleenes beare her a thousand wayes’ and ending ‘Since her best worke is ruin’d with thy rigour’.
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60 VENUS AND ADONIS
THIRD EDITION, 1596.
book was changed. The quarto shape gave place to the octavo, and the quarto shape was never resumed. The signatures henceforth run A to D iij in eights. Though the page was slightly smaller, each bore as much type as before, and the leaves continued to number twenty-seven. The text of 1594 is followed in the issue of 1596 with small typographical change. Field was the printer. Two copies are extant—one in the British Museum, and the other in the Bodleian. The British Museum copy, which measures $4\frac{7}{8}'' \times 2\frac{15}{16}''$, is bound in half-(olive) morocco with red cloth sides, and is preserved in a russia leather case. It is in good condition, although one or two of the concluding leaves are stained. The book was in the library of Sir William Bolland, at whose sale in 1840 it was bought by Benjamin Heywood Bright for £91. At Bright's sale on April 7, 1845, it was bought by George Daniel for £91 10s. od.¹ The underbidder was Thomas Grenville. At
¹ Daniel wrote in the book the following note:—“This most precious
- title
- THIRD EDITION, 1596.