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- # FIRST EDITION, 1594
## Overview
This section, titled "FIRST EDITION, 1594," details the first published edition of William Shakespeare's poem *Lucrece*. It was published in quarto format in 1594.
## Context
This section is part of Chapter III of a larger work, extracted from the file "pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt" and belongs to the collection "[PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y)". It follows the section titled "[The alterations of 1616.](arke:01KG6S5J9P132XGSNDYJ7XPN8Z)" and precedes the section titled "[No. I.](arke:01KG6S5J9JTWNMABG688QKGCEC)".
## Contents
The text describes the physical characteristics of the 1594 quarto edition of *Lucrece*, noting its signatures, lack of pagination, and the placement of the dedication and argument. It also provides the full title page transcription and details the printer's device used by Richard Field, comparing it to the device on the title page of *Venus and Adonis*. The description further identifies the specific copy reproduced in facsimile: one of two exemplars in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which was part of Edmund Malone's collection. Malone acquired this copy in 1779 along with a first edition of Shakespeare's *Sonnets*.
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- FIRST EDITION, 1594
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- FIRST EDITION, 1594
The first edition of *Lucrece* is the only one which appeared in quarto. The signatures run:—A i, A ii, B–N, in fours. There are forty-seven leaves in all without pagination. The dedication figures on the recto side, and the ‘Argument’ on the verso side, of the leaf signed A ii. The text of the poem commences on the leaf signed B. The title-page runs:—LVCRECE | [Field’s device and motto] LONDON | Printed by Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, and are | to be sold at the signe of the white Greyhound | in Paules Churh-yard 1594. | The pattern of Field’s device of the suspended anchor, with his motto *Anchora Spei*, slightly differs from that on the title-page of *Venus and Adonis*. In the *Lucrece* volume the boughs are crossed in front of the stem of the anchor, instead of being figured behind the stem, as in the *Venus and Adonis* volume.
The copy of the first edition of the poem, which is reproduced in facsimile for the first time in this volume, is one of the two exemplars now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It belongs to the collection of books which was presented in 1816 to the library by the brother of Edmund Malone, the Shakespearean commentator, and is numbered Malone 34. In the spring of 1779, Malone bought for twenty guineas a single volume containing this copy of the first edition of *Lucrece*, together with a first edition of Shakespeare’s *Sonnets*.¹ At a later date he caused these and many other of his quarto editions of Shakespeare’s works to be inlaid and
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- FIRST EDITION, 1594