Liber C, folio 157 verso
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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. 157v
Terms of use
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. 157v
Folger Shakespeare Library Staff, "Stationers' Register entry for The Puritan," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/413.
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, Liber C, folio 157 verso. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/413.
The Puritan was entered into Liber C of the Stationers' Company on August 6, 1607 as "the comedie of 'The Puritan Widowe'." George Eld, the publisher and printer who registered the title, produced the first and only quarto edition later that year. He attributed his edition to an author with the initials "W.S." The play is considered part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha and was included in the second impression of the Third Folio in 1664. Current scholarship, however, rejects this hypothesis in favor of Thomas Middleton as author, based on stylistic analysis of the writing and the presence of other Jacobean playwrights with the same initials writing during the same period.
This same leaf in the register includes an entry for a "commedie called What you will," but this is an earlier play written by John Marston, and not related to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
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]
1607 5to Regis
6 Augusti
Geo. Elde Entred for his copie vnder the handes of Sir
Geo. Bucke knight and the wardens
a book called the comedie of the Puritan
Widowe . . . . . vjd
Geo. Elde. Entred for his copie vnder the handes of Sir Geo.
Bucke knight and the Wardens a booke
Called. Northward Ho. . vjd
Jo. Wright. Entred for his copie vnder th[e h]andes of mr
Wilson and the wardens a booke called
the Court of Conscience, or Dycke
Whippers Cessions Donne by Ri West . . . vjd
Tho. Thorp. Entred for his copie vnder the handes of Sir
Geo. Bucke knight and The wardens A
commedie called What you will . . vjd
18. Augusti.
Wm ferbrand Entred for his copy vnder the handes
of mr Wilson and the wardens
A letter from a baker of
Bononia to the Pope. first
translated out of the Italian copie
printed at Florence into Dutche
& nowe out of Dutche into
Englishe . . . . . . vjd
27. Augusti
Jo. Helme Entred for their copie vnder the handes
Jo. Busby Jun of The wardens A booke called The
Salerne schole or phisicall obseruacons
for the perfect preservinge of the body of
Man in contynuall healthe . . vjd
Primo Die Septembris
Ma. Lownes Entred for his copie vnder the handes
of the Wardens A Book
Conteyninge Twoo Sermons made
By. G. B. preacher of
Alphamston in Essex / beinge
Called. the Narrowe Way &
the Laste Judgement . . . . . vjd
2 Septembris
Rafe Blore Entred for his copie vnder the handes of mr
Wilson & The wardens A booke
called A Court of good Counsell . 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), 3:358.
DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks, "The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling Street," Ed. Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser. Created 2007. Accessed 15 January 2016. http://deep.sas.upenn.edu.
Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, "1509. The Puritan," in British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 5, 1603-1608 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 314-18.
Last updated July 13, 2020
