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- # Brit. Mus. (Grenville) copy, 1594.
## Overview
This is a section from a digitized text that describes copies of the second edition of Shakespeare's *Venus and Adonis*, published in 1594. The section focuses on the copy formerly owned by Thomas Grenville and bequeathed to the British Museum. It was extracted on January 30, 2026, as part of a structure extraction process.
## Context
This section is part of the [Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, Sonnets, and Pericles (Facsimile Editions)](arke:01KG6S3KNZT62WVVW4VT384KPF) poetry collection, which is contained within the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y) collection. The text was extracted from the file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). It follows the section [No. II.](arke:01KG6S4CVTP2BVSQWH3YV8C49P) and precedes the section titled [THIRD EDITION, 1596.](arke:01KG6S4CVTHXY12P73P178YM88).
## Contents
The section details the provenance and physical characteristics of the British Museum copy of the 1594 edition of *Venus and Adonis*. It recounts how the copy was once owned by Thomas Jolley, a collector, who acquired it in Lancashire. It then traces the copy's acquisition by Thomas Grenville, who bequeathed it to the British Museum in 1846. The section also provides physical details such as its dimensions (6½" × 4¾"), binding (olive morocco by Clarke), and mentions its reproduction by Mr. E. W. Ashbee in 1867. Additionally, the section briefly discusses the Bodleian copy (Malone Additional 886) and a third copy that belonged to George Daniel.
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- Brit. Mus. (Grenville) copy, 1594.
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- text
- Brit. Mus. (Grenville) copy, 1594.
The British Museum copy was at one time the property of Thomas Jolley, F.S.A., the well-known collector in the early years of the nineteenth century. He stumbled upon it in one of his Lancashire rambles, in a volume which also contained the first edition of the Sonnets of 1609 and was purchased for a few pence.¹ At the sale of Jolley’s library in 1844 it was bought
¹ See T. F. Dibdin’s Library Companion, 1824, p. 808.
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VENUS AND ADONIS 59
SECOND EDITION, 1594.
by Thomas Grenville for £116, and bequeathed by him to the British Museum in 1846. It measures 6½" × 4¾". The edges are somewhat closely cut, and some pages are slightly mended. It is bound in olive morocco by Clarke. It was reproduced by Mr. E. W. Ashbee in 1867, together with the edition of 1593.
The Bodleian copy (Malone Additional 886) was bequeathed to the Library by Thomas Caldecott, an ardent student of Shakespeare, in 1833. With it are bound (in red morocco) first editions of *Lucrece* (1594) and the *Sonnets* (1609). The signature of an early owner, ‘Thomas Newton,’ appears on the last leaf. A manuscript note by Caldecott on the fly-leaf runs thus:—‘I purchased the contents of this volume, June, 1796, of an obscure bookseller, of the name of Vanderberg, near St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster. He had cut them with several others out of a volume, put each of them separately in blue paper, and priced them at 4s. and 5s. Some time after he told me that he had met with them among many others at a bookseller’s auction.’ The copy measures 6½" × 4¾", and the edges are closely shaved.
The third copy of the 1594 edition, which is generally regarded as the finest, belonged, until 1864, to George Daniel, of Canonbury, and was purchased at the Daniel sale in 1864 by Mr. Henry Huth for £240. It measures as much as 7½" × 4½".
- title
- Brit. Mus. (Grenville) copy, 1594.