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- # SEVENTH EDITION, 1617.
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a section describing the seventh edition of "Venus and Adonis," published in 1617. It is part of the larger [Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, Sonnets, and Pericles (Facsimile Editions)](arke:01KG6S3KNZT62WVVW4VT384KPF) collection, which is extracted from the file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). The section is part of the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y) collection.
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This section discusses a unique copy of the 1617 edition of "Venus and Adonis" that was included in Thomas Caldecott's bequest to the Bodleian Library in 1833. The edition was printed for W. B., who was William Barrett, the publisher who purchased the copyright of Leake in 1617. The section also references the Macclesfield copy of the 1602 edition ([Macclesfield copy, 1602.](arke:01KG6S4DDRV4ZEEED899J65P6C)) and the eighth edition from 1620 ([EIGHTH EDITION, 1620.](arke:01KG6S4DDWCV2Q6E5TABXMNFF9)).
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The section describes the physical characteristics of the 1617 edition, noting it is a small octavo and the text is identical to the 1602 edition. It also mentions a unique copy of the 1620 edition and the 1627 edition, which was printed in Edinburgh, making it the first example of Shakespeare's work printed outside of London. The section provides details about the printers and publishers involved, including John Wreittoun.
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- SEVENTH EDITION, 1617.
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- SEVENTH EDITION, 1617. No. XII. Bodleian (Caldecott) copy, 1617.
A unique copy of the edition of 1617 was included in Thomas Caldecott’s bequest in 1833 to the Bodleian Library¹ (Malone 890). It bears the imprint ‘Printed for W. B. 1617.’ W. B. was William Barrett, the publisher or bookseller who
purchased the copyright of Leake in 1617. The volume is a small octavo ($4\frac{9}{16}'' \times 3\frac{5}{16}''$) with the same signatures and the same number of leaves as its immediate predecessors. The text seems identical with that of 1602.
¹ Dyce in his edition of Shakespeare mentions an edition of the year 1616. There is no other trace of it, and Dyce may have been thinking in error of the edition of *Lucrece* of 1616.
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VENUS AND ADONIS 69
A unique copy of the edition of 1620—‘Printed for I. P.’ (i.e. John Parker)—is among the books left by Capell to Trinity College, Cambridge. It is bound with a copy of *The Passionate Pilgrim* of 1599, which follows it. The volume belonged at one time to ‘Honest Tom Martin’ (1697–1771) of Palgrave, the historian of Thetford. At the end there is the note in old writing, ‘Not quite perfect, see 4 or 5 leaves back: so it cost me but 3 Halfpence.’ The measurements are $4\frac{3}{4}'' \times 3\frac{3}{4}''$. It is a small octavo, faithfully reproducing the edition of 1617, although the title-page has the comma instead of the colon in the Latin quotation, as in the early impression of the 1602 edition (No. IX).¹
A special interest attaches to the edition of 1627, of which two copies are now traceable. This edition was printed not in London, but in Edinburgh, and is the first example of the printing outside London of any work of Shakespeare. The Edinburgh printer and publisher who undertook the venture was John Wreittoun, a man of substance, with a shop, as he states on the title-page, ‘a little beneath the Salt Trone.’ It is possible that the publisher’s neighbour, Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet, who was an admiring critic of Shakespeare, suggested the venture.² A copy of an early edition of the poem was in Drummond’s library
¹ The erroneous statement of the Cambridge editors in their first edition (1866) that a second copy of the 1620 edition was bought in 1839 for the Bodleian Library is corrected in their second edition (1895). The copy of *Venus and Adonis* bought in 1839 had no title-page and was for a time wrongly identified with the edition of 1620. From that edition it differs materially. It more probably belongs to the year 1630 (see No. XVII).
² Wreittoun began business in 1624 at the Nether Bowe, Edinburgh. He removed in 1627 to ‘the Salt Trone’, where he made his reputation. There he seems to have remained till 1636, when he retired from trade, after producing as many as fifty-six books. He died in 1640. His wife, Margaret Kene, seems to have been sister of the second surviving wife of the well-known Edinburgh printer, Andro Hart (d. 1621), the friend and publisher of the poet Drummond of Hawthornden, who recommended his friend Drayton to publish with him. For my knowledge of Wreittoun’s career I am mainly indebted to information kindly given me by Mr. J. P. Edmond, now Librarian to the Writers of the Signet at Edinburgh, and by Mr. H. G. Aldis, of the Cambridge University Library.
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- SEVENTH EDITION, 1617.