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Liber C
August 6,
1607

Liber C, folio 157 verso

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Liber C, folio 157 verso
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Institution Rights and Document Citation

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

Item Creator
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
Item Title
Liber C
Item Date
1595-1620, entry for August 6, 1607
Repository
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, UK
Call Number
Liber C, fol. 157v

Institution Rights and Document Citation

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 Documentedhttps://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.
 

Semi-diplomatic transcription

[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