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The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers has graciously contributed the above image from their collections to Shakespeare Documented under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. For any further use, visitors should contact the Clerk of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers at clerk@stationers.org.
Document-specific information
Creator: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
Title: Liber C
Date: 1595-1620
Repository: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, UK
Call number and opening: Liber C, fol. 147r
Folger Shakespeare Library Staff, "Stationers' Register entry for the transfer of Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labor's Lost, and the Taming of the Shrew in 1607," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/414.
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, Liber C, folio 147 recto. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/414.
On January 22, 1607, publisher Cuthbert Burby transferred Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labor's Lost, and The Taming of the Shrew to fellow publisher Nicholas Ling in an entry in Liber C of the Stationers' Company. The three titles are grouped together, with Romeo and Juliet entered as "Romeo and Juliett," Love's Labor's Lost entered as "Loues Labour Loste," and The Taming of the Shrew entered as "The taminge of A Shrewe."
There is no record of Burby entering any of these titles in the Registers previously. The Taming of a Shrew was registered by the printer Peter Short in 1594, who printed the first two quarto editions (1594, 1596), which Burby sold. However, no record of Short's transfer to Burby has been found. John Danter and Edward Allde printed and published the first quarto edition of Romeo and Juliet in 1597, but Burby sold the second quarto edition (printed by Thomas Creede) in 1599. Burby did sell the first quarto edition of Love's Labor's Lost, printed for him by William White in 1598. Although Ling never published an edition of the latter or Romeo and Juliet, he did publish the third quarto edition of The Taming of a Shrew within the year. Nicholas Ling transferred all three of these titles to John Smethwick on November 19, 1607, along with Hamlet and twelve other titles.
Liber C and the other registers with Shakespeare’s works are still kept by the Stationers’ Company in their archives.
[This transcription is pending final vetting]
[Current transcription based on Arber; check back soon for a transcription that conforms to Shakespeare Documented conventions]
1606 iiijto R Jacobi 147
16 Januarij
Eliazer Edgar Entred for his Copie vnder the handes of
Mr Powell and Mr Whyte warden
A booke called the Turkes Newe yeres
gifte, or the greate Turkes letters
sebt ti Diuers Christian princes
with their seuerall Answeres to his
letter &c . . . . vjd R
19 Januarij
Edw. Blount Entred for his copy vnder the handes of mr
Owen Gwyn and the Warden
mr whyte. A booke Called. Aulica
or the Courtiers arte
Ars Aulica. . vjd R
22 Januarij
mr Linge Entred for his copie by Direccon
of A Court, and by bergaine &
assignement of mr Seton vnder his
hand wrytinge datum 16 octobris 1606.
Sir Tho. Smythes booke intituled
The common wealth of England . . . . . . vjd R
Mr Linge Entred for his copies by direccon
of A Court and with consent of
Mr Burby vnder his handwrytinge
These. iij copies. viz. Romeo
& Juliett Loues Labour
Loste. The taminge of
A Shrewe . . . . xviijd R
26 Januarij
Jo. Browne Entred for his copye vnder the handes of
mr Owyn Gwyn and the wardens
a booke called the discription of A
maske presented before the kinges maiestie
at Whitehall on Twelfnight last, in
honour of the Lord Haies & his bryde
Daughter & heire to the right honorable
the Lord Denny, their mariage havinge
ben at Court the same day solemnised . . . vjd
Sources
Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London: 1554–1640 A.D. 5 vols. (London: privately printed, 1875–94), 3:337.
DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks, "Romeo and Juliet," Ed. Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser. Created 2007. Accessed 15 January 2016. http://deep.sas.upenn.edu.
Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, "987. Romeo and Juliet," in British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 3, 1590-1597 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 268-74.
Last updated February 8, 2020