Thomas Cotes
Thomas Cotes | |
---|---|
Died | 1641 |
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Printer |
Thomas Cotes (died 1641) was a London printer of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, best remembered for printing the Second Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632.
Life and work
Thomas Cotes became a "freeman" (a full member) of the
A royal decree of 1637 named Thomas Cotes one of the twenty Master Printers of the Stationers Company.[2]
Drama
In his substantial career, Cotes was a major producer of play texts of
Other works
Cotes worked on poetry, printing John Taylor the Water Poet's Wit and Mirth (1629) for James Boler, and James Day's A New Spring of Divine Poetry and Thomas Jordan's Poetical Varieties (both 1637), both for Humphrey Blunden. Most notably in this area, Cotes printed John Benson's important 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems. Cotes produced books on heraldry; religious and polemical works, by William Prynne, Hugh Latimer, ‘The Threefold Supper of Christ in the night that he was betrayed’ by Edward Kellett (1641), and other works; and a large share of ephemera and now-forgotten items – like The Book of Merry Riddles (1629), Wine, Beer, Ale and Tobacco (1630), and Robin Goodfellow, His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests (1640).[3]
Later years
During his later years, Thomas Cotes served as the clerk of his London parish, St. Giles without Cripplegate; as such, he was a member of their guild, the Parish Clerks' Company. That guild maintained its own printing press, for issuing bills of mortality. (The Stuart regime was serious about security and censorship: the parish clerks' printing press was kept in a triple-locked room.) Thomas Cotes served as the clerks' printer from 1636 until his death in 1641. Thereafter the clerks' printing was done by brother Richard Cotes, who in turn was followed by Ellen or Ellinor Cotes, Richard's widow.[4]
Thomas Cotes was survived by two sons, James and Thomas. The exact date of his death is not recorded; he was buried on 15 July 1641. His last will and testament was signed on 22 June 1641 and probated on 19 July the same year. His will assigned full rights to their business to brother Richard, the surviving partner, in return for a payment of £100.
References
- ^ Henry Robert Plomer, A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667, London, The Bibliographical Society/Blades, East & Blades, 1907; p. 53.
- ^ Henry Robert Plomer, A Short History of English Printing, 1476–1898, London, Kegan Paul, 1900; pp. 178–9.
- ^ George Watson Cole and Philip Sanford Goulding, Check-List or Brief Catalogue of the Library of Henry E. Huntington, New York (privately printed), 1919.
- ^ Peter Hampson Ditchfield, The Parish Clerk, London, Methuen, 1907; pp. 115–26.