The small number of surviving copies of early editions.

Distribution of surviving copies.

VI

THE strangest fact to be noticed in regard to the bibliography of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis is that, though there were at least six editions issued in the poet's lifetime and seven in the two generations following his death, in the case of only two-the second and the sixth-of these thirteen editions do as many as three copies survive. In regard to the twelve other editions, the surviving copies of each are fewer. Of the editions of 1596, 1627, 1636, and 1675 two copies of each are known. Of the editions of 1593, 1599, 1600, 1617 and 1620, and the two editions of 1630, only one copy survives in each case. It is quite possible that there were editions in other years of which every copy has disappeared. But no more singular circumstance has yet been revealed in bibliographical history than that thirteen early editions of a sixteenth-century work should have been traced and only twenty-one exemplars of them all should be now known to bibliographical research. It is not extravagant to estimate that each sixteenth- or seventeenth century edition of Venus and Adonis averaged 250 copies. On that assumption it will be seen that 3,729 copies have perished out of the 3,750 printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This wholesale mortality is doubtless the penalty the work paid for its popularity and accessibility. The copies were eagerly read and re-read, were quickly worn out and were carelessly flung away.

The present distribution of the twenty-one copies of the early editions which are known to survive is interesting. Eighteen are now in Great Britain and three are in America. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has the high distinction of

owning as many as nine; of these one came from the library of Robert Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy (No. X); a second came from the library of Anthony à Wood (No. XVI); three were presented by the great

Shakespearean schola. Ed.

ERRATUM

Page 54, line 7, for twelve other editions read eleven other editions.

Venus and Adonis: Introduction.

exemplar of the same edition in inferior condition, now in the Bodleian Library, was bought bound up with other poetical tracts for 6d.

The following is a detailed account of each of the Census of

copies.

VI

THE strangest fact to be noticed in regard to the

Adamon in that though

The small

-

Distribution

copies.

and were carelessiy nung away.

The present distribution of the twenty-one copies of the of surviving early editions which are known to survive is interesting. Eighteen are now in Great Britain and three are in America. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has the high distinction of

owning as many as nine; of these one came from the library of Robert Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy (No. X); a second came from the library of Anthony à Wood (No. XVI); three were presented by the great Shakespearean scholar, Edmund Malone (Nos. I, VI, and VIII); two were bequeathed by Thomas Caldecott (Nos. III and XII); and two (Nos. XVII and XXI) have been purchased. The British Museum owns five copies. Trinity College, Cambridge, owns one. The remaining six, which are alone in private hands, are evenly divided between England and America. The three private owners in England are Mr. A. H. Huth, Mrs. Christie Miller, and the Earl of Macclesfield. The three private owners in America are Mr. Robert Hoe and Mr. H. C. Folger, jr. (both of New York); and Mr. Marsden J. Perry, of Providence, Rhode Island.

Few of the copies have run the gauntlet of public Recorded auction. None of the more interesting exemplars have prices. changed hands of recent years, and the recorded prices are very small compared with those which would be realized in the present state of the book market. Malone deemed the £25 which he paid in 1805 for the unique copy of the first edition 'an enormous price'. That copy is now safely housed in the Bodleian Library, but had it a present selling value its price would exceed £2,000. The highest sum which any copy of an early edition has fetched in the sale-room is £336, which was paid by the British Museum for George Daniel's copy of the 1596 edition in 1864. Forty-four years earlier this volume had realized at a sale £91. A century before, an exemplar of the same edition in inferior condition, now in the Bodleian Library, was bought bound up with other poetical tracts for 6d.

The following is a detailed account of each of the

Census of copies.

FIRST EDITION, 1593. No. I. Bodleian (Malone) copy of

1593.

surviving twenty-one copies of the early editions. For purposes of reference they are numbered consecutively.

Of the first edition, which is reproduced in this volume, only a single copy is known to exist. It is among the books which belonged to Edmund Malone, the Shakespearean commentator, and are now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The story of Malone's acquisition of the rare volume is interesting. At the outset of his career as a Shakespearean commentator he sought in vain for any early edition of Venus and Adonis. In his behalf, Thomas Longman, 'bookseller, of Paternoster Row,' offered, without result, a guinea for that of 1593 in an advertisement in the St. James's Chronicle on April 15, 1779. In 1780, in his Supplement to the edition of Shakespeare's plays' which Dr. Johnson and George Steevens had jointly prepared in 1778, he issued a text of the dramatist's genuine poetical compositions'. But he found it impossible to print Venus and Adonis from the original copies. Though much inquiry was made for it,' Malone wrote in the Advertisement, 'the editor has not been able to procure the first edition.' He acknowledged, however, the loan from Dr. Farmer of a copy of that poem published in 1600'. Dr. Farmer's copy, which was without a title-page, is now in the Bodleian Library with Malone's books (see No. VIII, infra). A few years after the publication of his text

• Much information respecting the extant copies of Venus and Adonis is collected in Justin Winsor's valuable, but inaccessible, Shakespeare's Poems: a bibliography of the earlier editions (Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, No. 2, Cambridge, Mass., 1879). Valuable suggestions are made in the Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. 38, 1895, preface; in Charles Edmond's Preface (v-xxii) to Venus and Adonis from the bitkerto unknown edition of 1599 (1870), and in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual (ed. H. G. Bohn, s. v. Shakespeare, 1864). I have personally inspected most of the volumes described which remain in England. I owe my main knowledge of those in America to descriptions furnished by their present owners. I have to thank the American collectors, Mr. Robert Hoe, Mr. H. C. Folger, jr., and Mr. Marsden J. Perry, for courteous replies to my inquiries.

* On April 29, 1779, Malone wrote to the Earl of Charlemont, Do you happen to be possessed of any ancient edition of Shakespeare's poem of