Arch. G g.2, title page
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The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, has graciously contributed images of materials in its collections to Shakespeare Documented under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Images used within the scope of these terms should cite the Bodleian Libraries as the source. For any use outside the scope of these terms, visitors should contact Bodleian Libraries Imaging Services at imaging@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Venus and Adonis [by W. Shakespeare].
Date: Lond. for W.B., 1617
Repository: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Call number and opening: Arch. G g.2 title page & sigs. A2r-v
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Arch. G g.2, signature A2 recto
Terms of use
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, has graciously contributed images of materials in its collections to Shakespeare Documented under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Images used within the scope of these terms should cite the Bodleian Libraries as the source. For any use outside the scope of these terms, visitors should contact Bodleian Libraries Imaging Services at imaging@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Venus and Adonis [by W. Shakespeare].
Date: Lond. for W.B., 1617
Repository: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Call number and opening: Arch. G g.2 title page & sigs. A2r-v
View online bibliographic record
Arch. G g.2, signature A2 verso
Terms of use
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, has graciously contributed images of materials in its collections to Shakespeare Documented under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Images used within the scope of these terms should cite the Bodleian Libraries as the source. For any use outside the scope of these terms, visitors should contact Bodleian Libraries Imaging Services at imaging@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Venus and Adonis [by W. Shakespeare].
Date: Lond. for W.B., 1617
Repository: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Call number and opening: Arch. G g.2 title page & sigs. A2r-v
View online bibliographic record
Terms of use
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, has graciously contributed images of materials in its collections to Shakespeare Documented under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Images used within the scope of these terms should cite the Bodleian Libraries as the source. For any use outside the scope of these terms, visitors should contact Bodleian Libraries Imaging Services at imaging@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
Copy-specific information
Creator: William Shakespeare
Title: Venus and Adonis [by W. Shakespeare].
Date: Lond. for W.B., 1617
Repository: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Call number and opening: Arch. G g.2 title page & sigs. A2r-v
View online bibliographic record
Erin A. McCarthy, "Venus and Adonis, eleventh edition," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/670.
Bodleian Library, Arch. G g.2. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/670.
William Stansby printed the eleventh edition of Venus and Adonis for William Barrett in 1617. William Leake had transferred the right to publish Venus and Adonis to Barrett earlier that year on February 16, 1617. Barrett also gained the rights to 18 other items in the same entry, including two books of poetry by Robert Southwell, John Lyly’s Euphues, and several religious works.
Although Shakespeare is now known primarily as a playwright, in his own time he was equally revered as the author of Venus and Adonis, first printed in 1593, and Lucrece, his two sensationally successful Ovidian narrative poems. Venus and Adonis appeared in more printed editions than any other work of vernacular poetry in his lifetime, and was published twice as many times as his most successful play, Henry IV Part 1.
This is the only known copy of this edition known to survive. It was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by barrister and literary editor Thomas Caldecott in 1833.
To learn more about the plot and early printing history of Venus and Adonis, please visit the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare's Works; to read a modernized edition of the poem, see the Folger Shakespeare edition.
Written by Erin A. McCarthy
Sources
Edward W. Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London: 1554–1600 A.D. 5 vols. 1875–94. (Reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1967).
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.
Sidney Lee, ed., Shakespeares Venus and Adonis: Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition 1593. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905).
Last updated June 9, 2020
