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1598
Francis Meres provided one of the earliest printed assessments of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry in his 1598 publication, Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury in a chapter entitled “A comparatiue discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets.
1599
William Jaggard published The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599 in two separate octavo editions. While the first edition exists only as a fragment without a title page, the second edition, shown here, carries the attribution “By W.
1599
This is a fragment of the only surviving copy of the first edition of The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). An early owner bound it with other poetic works, including a 1600 edition of Shakespeare's Lucrece and the only surviving copy of the sixth editi
1609
At first glance, this copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, also published in 1609, might look just like the copy at the University of Manchester Library. However, there is a slight difference in the second-to-last line of the imprint.
May 20, 1609
On May 20, 1609, a publisher named Thomas Thorpe entered a book entitled "Shakespeare's sonnettes" into Liber C of the Stationers' Company.
June 19, 1609
Edward Alleyn (1566-1626), the famous Elizabethan actor and wealthy Jacobean gentleman, purchased a copy of Shake-speares Sonnets, published in 1609, recording his acquisition under “Howshowld stuff”:
1609
Shakespeare’s collection of 154 poems in the English sonnet form was first published in 1609.
1612
In 1612, William Jaggard published a third edition of The Passionate Pilgrim. Like the second edition, the third edition asserts “By W. Shakespeare.” on its title page.
ca. 1613
In 1613 Leonard Digges penned a note onto the fly-leaf of a copy of the third edition of Rimas de Lope de Vega Carpio, printed in Madrid the same year; the inscribed copy survives in the library of Balliol College, Oxford.
1640
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