Liber B, folio 286 recto
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 B
Date: 1576-1595
Repository: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, UK
Call number and opening: Liber B, fol. 286r
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 B
Date: 1576-1595
Repository: Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, UK
Call number and opening: Liber B, fol. 286r
Folger Shakespeare Library Staff, "Stationers' Register entry for Arden of Faversham," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/374.
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Maker, Liber B, folio 286 recto. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/374.
"The Tragedy of Arden of Faversham and Black Will" was entered by Edward White in Stationers' Liber B on April 3, 1592 and licensed for publication by John Aylmer, Bishop of London. Arden of Faversham is considered part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. The first quarto edition was printed later that year, likely by Edward Allde for Edward White. However, between August 3 and 7, 1592, an illegal copy was printed by Abel Jeffes.
An entry in the Liber for December 18, 1592 indicates the Stationers' Company seized Jeffes’ counterfeit copies, recorded as "Arden of Kent," and ordered him to pay a fine of 10 shillings. No known copies of this counterfeit edition survive. In the same December 18 entry, Edward White was accused of illegally printing an edition of the Spanish Tragedy, licensed to Jeffes. White’s copies were also seized, and he was also fined 10 shillings.
Second and third quarto editions of Arden of Faversham were printed in 1599 and 1633, both for Edward White.
Liber B and the other registers with Shakespeare’s works are still kept by the Stationers’ Company in their archives.
[Current transcription based on Arber; check back soon for a transcription that conforms to Shakespeare Documented conventions]
1592 34to: Regine Elizabeth 286
3 Aprilis
Jo. wolf. Entred for his copie vnder master
Hartwelles hand. a prophecie
for Eight yeres yet to comme vjd
Edward white. Entred for his copie vnder th[e
handes of the Lord Bishop
of London and the wardens
G*S The tragedie of Arden of
Feuersham and Blackwall vjd
vjto Aprilis /
John Wolf./ Entred vnto him for his Copie
vnder the hande of master Hartwell
Gargantua his prophesie vjd
vijo aprilis
John Kydde./ Entred vnto him for his copie vnder
the handes of the Bishop of London and master
Coldock./ a booke intituled A most
wretched worke of a wretched witche
the like whereof none can recorde
theis many yeres in Englande vjd
xo Aprilis.
Jo. wolf. Entred for his copies / the
Second, Third, ffourthe and
ffyft bookes of Amadis De Gaule
To be translated out of French into
Englishe Memorandum: that the lord bishop ijs A
of London his hand is to euery of the
said iiij French bookes seuerally for
alowance of the printinge thereof in
English
Jo. wolf. Entred for his copie vnder the hand of the
Lord Byshop of London, a newe
ballad describinge the weapons wee
ought to haue to fight with Sathan
before wee goo to our graue vjd A
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), 2:607
Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, "846. Master Arden of Faversham in Kent," in British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 3, 1590-1597 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9-12.
Last updated February 8, 2020
