Thomas Pavier (died 1625) was a London publisher and bookseller of the early seventeenth century. His complex involvement in the publication of early editions of some of Shakespeare's plays, as well as plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, has left him with a "dubious reputation." [1]
Pavier came to the business of publishing in an unusual way: instead of serving the normal apprenticeship in the Stationers Company, he was one of several young men who transferred to the Stationers from the Drapers Company on 3 June 1600. Pavier had served an apprenticeship under William Barley, a draper who doubled as a bookseller. Pavier was able to set himself up in business that year; his shop was located at the sign of the Cat and Parrots, "over against Pope's Head Alley" in Cornhill. [2] Early in his career Pavier was found guilty of various misdemeanours by the Court of Stationers. [3] One conviction was 'for printing certain books and ballads without a licence' or 'without authority or entrance' in the Stationers' Register. [3] Along with William Barley, his brother Roger and printer Simon Stafford he was also accused of illegally printing a Latin grammar manual. [3] Four thousand copies of the book were discovered in Roger's home and confiscated by members of the Stationers' Company. [3] In June 1598 Pavier backed Stafford in an attempt to prosecute Cuthbert Burby for riot who, along with others, had been acting for the Stationers' Company. [3] The complaint was dismissed by the Stationers' Court and the four men found themselves incarcerated in Fleet Prison over the affair. [3]
Over the course of his quarter-century career, Pavier grew rich by publishing popular works of Puritan literature in multiple editions. [4] At the start of his career, however, he worked at the lower end of the prestige scale in printed matter in his era: he primarily published ballads, chapbooks, pamphlets, and playbooks. One of his earliest products in the ballad line was The Fair Widow of Watling Street and Her Three Daughters (c. 1600). He followed this with many comparable works, with titles like The Lamentable Murthers of Sir John Fitz (1605), A Cruel Murther in Worcestershire (1605), The Fire in Shoreditch (1606), The Traitors' Downfall (1606), The Shepherd's Lamentation (1612), and The Burning of Tyverton (1612). He also published ballads by Thomas Deloney and Samuel Rowlands.
Pavier's firm prospered and he eventually rose to be his guild's Junior Warden in 1622, but Pavier never abandoned ballads. In the years 1612–20, when the Stationers Company limited ballad printing to only five of its members, Pavier was one of the five. In 1624 he was a member of the "Ballad Stock," a syndicate of stationers dedicated to the production of ballads in print.
One of Pavier's earliest acts as a stationer was to enter the popular though anonymous play Captain Thomas Stukeley into the Stationers' Register on 11 August 1600 (though the earliest edition now known was Pavier's of 1605). He published several other plays, including the anonymous The Fair Maid of Bristow (1605), and The First Part of Hieronimo (1605), the anonymous "prequel" to Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy . Pavier also published editions of Kyd's play: he obtained the rights to The Spanish Tragedy on 14 August 1600 and issued the fourth edition in 1602. He published the third quarto of A Looking Glass for London , by Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene, also in 1602, and the second quarto of the anonymous Jack Straw in 1604. [5]
Thomas Pavier is best remembered for his editions of Shakespearean plays, and plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha: [6] [7]
Most controversially, Pavier was somehow involved with William Jaggard in the cryptic False Folio affair of 1619, which involved the publication of ten Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean plays in quarto editions, some with falsified title pages. The early versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI were printed in one volume, titled The Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster. This volume and four others – Henry V, Sir John Oldcastle, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre – were issued with the initials "T. P." on their title pages. The only complete extant copy of the False Folio resides at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Among the many points about the False Folio that are uncertain and obscure is Pavier's precise role in the matter. Pavier was a business associate of Jaggard; but the real nature of his connection is debated by scholars. [8] Some modern commentators argue that Pavier's role in the matter may have been more substantive than Jaggard's, and call the disputed texts the "Pavier quartos." In any event, Shakespeare scholars would come to refer to Pavier as a 'notorious piratical publisher'. [3]
Pavier had other, minor links with the Shakespeare canon. When Thomas Millington transferred his rights to 2 and 3 Henry VI in 1602, Millington's copyright to Titus Andronicus was included in the deal. Pavier, however, did not publish an edition of that play; the next, third edition of 1611 was issued by another bookseller, Edward White.
In 1608, Pavier published a volume titled The History of Hamblet. This featured the Hamlet story as recorded in Shakespeare's sources, the Historia Danica of Saxo Grammaticus and the Histoires Tragiques of François de Belleforest. The book was likely published to capitalize on the popularity of Shakespeare's play.
The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually abbreviated to Q1, Q2, etc., where the letter stands for "quarto" and the number for the first, second, or third edition published.
This article presents a possible chronological listing of the composition of the plays of William Shakespeare.
The Shakespeare apocrypha is a group of plays and poems that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons. The issue is not to be confused with the debate on Shakespearean authorship, which questions the authorship of the works traditionally attributed to Shakespeare.
Thomas Lord Cromwell is an Elizabethan history play, depicting the life of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, the minister of King Henry VIII of England.
A Yorkshire Tragedy is an early Jacobean era stage play, a domestic tragedy printed in 1608. The play was originally assigned to William Shakespeare, though the modern critical consensus rejects this attribution, favouring Thomas Middleton.
False Folio is the term that Shakespeare scholars and bibliographers have applied to William Jaggard's printing of ten Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean plays together in 1619, the first attempt to collect Shakespeare's work in a single volume. Publisher and bookseller Thomas Pavier is also implicated with 'printed for T.P.' appearing on the title pages.
William Jaggard was an Elizabethan and Jacobean printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of William Shakespeare, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays. Jaggard's shop was "at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key in Barbican."
Valentine Simmes was an Elizabethan era and Jacobean era printer; he did business in London, "on Adling Hill near Bainard's Castle at the sign of the White Swan." Simmes has a reputation as one of the better printers of his generation, and was responsible for several quartos of Shakespeare's plays. [See: Early texts of Shakespeare's works.]
Thomas Creede was a printer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, rated as "one of the best of his time." Based in London, he conducted his business under the sign of the Catherine Wheel in Thames Street from 1593 to 1600, and under the sign of the Eagle and Child in the Old Exchange from 1600 to 1617. Creede is best known for printing editions of works in English Renaissance drama, especially for ten editions of six Shakespearean plays and three works in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.
William Aspley 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.
John Smethwick was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras. Along with colleague William Aspley, Smethwick was one of the "junior partners" in the publishing syndicate that issued the First Folio collection of Shakespeare's plays in 1623. As his title pages specify, his shop was "in St. Dunstan's Churchyard in Fleet Street, under the Dial."
Richard Hawkins was a London publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras. He was a member of the syndicate that published the Second Folio collection of Shakespeare's plays in 1632. His bookshop was in Chancery Lane, near Sergeant's Inn.
Andrew Wise, or Wyse or Wythes, was a London publisher of the Elizabethan era who issued first editions of five Shakespearean plays. "No other London stationer invested in Shakespeare as assiduously as Wise did, at least while Shakespeare was still alive."
Thomas Millington was a London publisher of the Elizabethan era, who published first editions of three Shakespearean plays. He has been called a "stationer of dubious reputation" who was connected with some of the "bad quartos" and questionable texts of Shakespearean bibliography.
George Eld was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton.
Nathaniel Butter was a London publisher of the early 17th century. As the publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare's King Lear in 1608, he has also been regarded as one of the first publishers of a newspaper in English.
Edward Allde was an English printer in London during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama, including some of the early editions of plays by William Shakespeare.
William Leake, father and son, were London publishers and booksellers of the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. They were responsible for a range of texts in English Renaissance drama and poetry, including works by Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher.
James Roberts, was an English printer who printed many important works of Elizabethan literature. F. G. Fleay says that "he seems to have been given to piracy and invasion of copyright".
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