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- ² In 1579 Vautrollier had published the first edition of North’s translation in partnership with J. Wright. The first edition which Field printed was published jointly by him and Bonham Norton in 1595. Field reprinted it with additions in 1603, when he and Thomas Wight published it. In 1612 Field reprinted the book and published it by himself.
F
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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).’
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VENUS AND ADONIS 43
The first transfer of the copyright.
John Harrison, second owner, June 25, 1594—June 25, 1596.
Field. He had been in continuous occupation of the shop known as the White Greyhound in St. Paul’s Churchyard since 1559. Field was already in close business relations with him when he acquired the copyright of *Venus and Adonis*.¹ It was in conformity with a recognized practice that the imprint on the title-page of the first edition ran:—«Imprinted by Richard Field and are to be sold at the signe of the White Greyhound in Paules Churchyard.» Next year a second edition came out in precisely the same conditions from Field’s press. The unaltered title-page announced that copies were to be sold at Harrison’s shop.
The copyright of *Venus and Adonis*, of which Field was the first owner, has a somewhat complicated history. The details illustrate the confused methods of Elizabethan publishing. Shakespeare may be absolved from responsibility for the involutions of the story. A new chapter opens after the appearance of the second edition early in 1594. A few months later, on June 25 of that year, Field found it convenient to make over the copyright in the poem to the publisher Harrison. The transfer is thus recorded in the Stationers’ Company’s Register²:
[1594] 25 Iunij
Assigned over unto him [i.e. Master Harrison, Senior] from Richard Field in open Court holden this Day a book called *Venus and Adonis* vj.
The which was before entered to Richard Field 18 Aprilis 1593.
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