MENU
Lucrece.
1600

STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, title page

View Image Assets
STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, title page
Click image to enlarge

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Terms of use
Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Lucrece.
Date: London, : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, title page & sigs. A2r-A2v
View online bibliographic record

Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
Lucrece.
Item Date
London : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, title page

STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, signature A2 recto

View Image Assets
STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, signature A2 recto
Click image to enlarge

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Terms of use
Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Lucrece.
Date: London, : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, title page & sigs. A2r-A2v
View online bibliographic record

Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
Lucrece.
Item Date
London : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, sig. A2r

STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, signatures A2 verso and A3 recto

View Image Assets
STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8, signatures A2 verso and A3 recto
Click image to enlarge

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Terms of use
Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Lucrece.
Date: London, : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, title page & sigs. A2r-A2v
View online bibliographic record

Item Creator
William Shakespeare
Item Title
Lucrece.
Item Date
London : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA
Call Number
STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, sigs. A2v-A3r

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Terms of use
Images that are under Folger copyright are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows you to use our images without additional permission provided that you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license. For more information, including permissions beyond the scope of this license, see Permissions. The Folger waives permission fees for non-commercial publication by registered non-profits, including university presses, regardless of the license they use. For images copyrighted by an entity other than the Folger, please contact the copyright holder for permission information.

Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Lucrece.
Date: London, : Printed by I. H. for Iohn Harison, 1600.
Repository: Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA
Call number and opening: STC 22347 Bd.w. STC 22341.8, title page & sigs. A2r-A2v
View online bibliographic record

Folger Shakespeare Library staff, "Lucrece, third edition," Shakespeare Documentedhttps://doi.org/10.37078/197.

Folger Shakespeare Library STC 22347 bound with STC 22341.8. See Shakespeare Documentedhttps://doi.org/10.37078/197.

The third edition of Lucrece was printed for John Harrison by his son, John Harrison III, in 1600.

Like the second and all subsequent editions, this third edition is imposed (type-set and printed) in octavo rather than in quarto, perhaps so readers could bind their copies with other short poetic pamphlets like Venus and Adonis. Indeed, this copy is bound with four related works in a contemporary limp vellum binding with the gilt initials ’G.O.’ on either side: parts of two editions of The Passionate Pilgrim combined to create a nearly complete version (11 unsigned leaves from the first edition (1599), and signatures B and D from the second edition, both printed in 1599); Thomas Middleton’s The Ghost of Lucrece (1600); and the fifth edition of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (1599).

Lucrece, first printed in 1594, would eventually reach an eighth edition before 1640, a number that equals Shakespeare's most popular play, Henry IV Part 1. Although Shakespeare is now known primarily as a playwright, in his own time he was equally revered as the author of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, his two sensationally successful Ovidian narrative poems.

The copy shown above is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. Two other copies of this edition are held at the Bodleian Library according to the English Short Title Catalogue. A variant edition, of which one copy survives at the Bodleian Library, reads “London.” on the title page, instead of “London,” as shown above. Farr suggests the “London.” version was printed from the “London,” edition.

To learn more about the plot and early printing history of Lucrece, please visit the Folger Shakespeare Librarys's Shakespeare's Works; to read a modernized edition of the poem, see the Folger Shakespeare edition.

Written by Folger Shakespeare Library staff

Sources

English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). British Library. <estc.bl.uk>

Harry Farr, “Notes on Shakespeare’s Printers and Publishers with Special Reference to the Poems and Hamlet.” The Library, 4th series, 3.4 (March 1923): 225–60.

Hamnet: Folger Shakespeare Library catalog <hamnet.folger.edu>

Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare in Print: A History and Chronology of Shakespeare Publishing (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 292.

Last updated June 8, 2020