Lucrece, fifth edition

The fifth edition of Lucrece was printed in 1607 by Nicholas Okes for John Harrison III, who had also published the fourth edition. This edition contains fewer errors than the fourth edition, but it is not clear whether Okes worked from a corrected copy of it or set the text from an even earlier edition.

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.

Two copies survive: one in Trinity College, Cambridge, and this one, which was owned by John Egerton, the second Earl of Bridgewater, and is now held at the Huntington Library. An early reader has added “by W: Shakespeare” below “LVCRECE” on the title page of the Huntington copy. This copy was apparently the third item bound in a pamphlet volume, as evidenced by the number “3” added to the upper right hand corner of the title page, although it is not known what other titles were included. It was broken out of the volume no later than the early 19th-century, as it is now bound individually in an early 19th-century binding.

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