William Aspley
William Aspley (died 1640) was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras. He was a member of the publishing syndicates that issued the First Folio and Second Folio collections of Shakespeare's plays, in 1623 and 1632.[1]
Career
The publisher was the son of a William Aspley of Royston, Cambridgeshire; he served a nine-year apprenticeship under George Bishop that started at Christmas 1587. Aspley's professional career was notable for its longevity: he became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Company on 4 April 1597,[2] and remained active for the next four decades. He served in the office of Master of the Company in 1640, the year he died. His shops were located 1) at the sign of the Tiger's Head, and 2) at the sign of the Parrot, both in St. Paul's Churchyard. (The Parrot was on the same block as the shop of First Folio colleague Edward Blount, at the sign of the Black Bear.)
Shakespeare
Aspley's connection with the Shakespeare canon began in 1600: on 23 August that year, he and fellow stationer Andrew Wise entered into the Stationers' Register the plays Henry IV, Part 2 and Much Ado About Nothing, so establishing their right to publish the works. Both plays were issued in individual quartos before the end of 1600, editions printed for Wise and Aspley by Valentine Simmes.[3][4] Neither play appears to have been a major success in printed form, since neither was reprinted prior to its inclusion in the First Folio in 1623.
Aspley had another, minor link to Shakespeare: some copies of
Other drama
Aspley also published some other play texts of English Renaissance drama, including:[7]
- the anonymous A Warning for Fair Women (1599);
- Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus(1600);
- the two quartos of Marston's The Malcontent that appeared in 1604;
- the two quartos of the famously controversial Eastward Ho (By Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston) that were both issued in 1605;
- the first two quartos of George Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois (Q1, 1607; Q2, 1608).
Other works
And of course Aspley published a great variety of other works during his long career, by authors ranging from
References
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 39, 170-1.
- ^ Joseph Ames, Typographical Antiquities, 3rd edition, London, 1790; pp. 1384โ5.
- E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 485.
- ^ Halliday, pp. 215, 326-7.
- ^ Halliday, p. 502.
- ^ Halliday, p. 170.
- ^ Chapman, Vol. 3, pp. 253โ4, 291, 431; Vol. 4, p. 52.