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Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford is the largest university library system in the United Kingdom. It includes the principal University library – the Bodleian Library – which has been a legal deposit library for 400 years; as well as 30 libraries across Oxford including major research libraries and faculty, department and institute libraries. Together, the Libraries hold more than 12 million printed items, over 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections including rare books and manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, music, art and printed ephemera. Members of the public can explore the collections via the Bodleian’s online image portal at digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk or by visiting the exhibition galleries in the Bodleian’s Weston Library. For more information, visit www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

 

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.

Documents contributed by Bodleian Library

ca. 1592
Fair Em, first edition
Fair Em is an anonymously written play that at various points since the mid-seventeenth century has been attributed to Shakespeare.
1593
Venus and Adonis, first edition
This is the only known copy in existence of the first edition of Shakespeare’s first printed work, Venus and Adonis, which appeared in 1593. During his lifetime Shakespeare was known first and foremost as the author of Venus and Adonis.
1595
Henry VI Part 3, first edition
This is the only surviving copy of the first edition of Henry VI Part 3, printed anonymously in 1595 printing as The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York.
1599
Epigrams in the Oldest Cut: critical responses and allusions to Shakespeare and three of his works
John Weever’s Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion was published in 1599. Weever began his career as an aspiring poet and literary observer at Cambridge, where he was the student of William Covell at Queen’s College.
1600
Henry VI Part 2, second edition
The second edition of Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2 was printed as The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster in 1600, six years after the first edition.

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