Edward Allde
Encyclopedia
Edward Allde (died 1628) was an English
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

 printer in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 during the Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

 and Jacobean
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...

 eras. He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...

, including some of the early editions of plays by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

.

Life

Edward Allde was part of a family of professional printers: his father John
John Allde
John Allde, also Aldaye, Alde or Aldye was a Scottish stationer and printer. He was the first person on the registers to take up the freedom of the Stationers' Company, when in January 1555 he paid the modest sum of 6s. 8d. for the customary breakfast to the brotherhood. His name appears in the...

, his mother Margaret, and his widow Elizabeth and two of her children all worked in the trade. Edward Allde took over the business of his father on the elder Allde's death in 1584; he became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Company
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter in 1557...

 in February of that year, "by patrimony." The son continued his father's practices and publications; John Allde, for example, had issued the undated first quarto of Thomas Preston
Thomas Preston (writer)
Thomas Preston was an English master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and possibly a dramatist.-Life:Preston was born at Simpson, Buckinghamshire, in 1537, and was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, where he was elected scholar, 16 Aug. 1553, and fellow, 18 Sept. 1556. He graduated B.A....

's play Cambyses sometime before 1584; Edward Allde issued the undated second quarto of the same play, sometime after 1584. The elder Allde published the first edition of Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like in 1568
1568 in literature
-New books:*Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki - De optimo senatore*Petar Hektorović - Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje ...

; the younger Allde published the second edition in 1587
1587 in literature
-Events:*The Rose theatre is built by Philip Henslowe in Southwark.*Torquato Tasso travels to Rome to stay with Scipione Gonzaga, Patriarch of Jerusalem.-New books:*George Gifford - A discourse of the subtill practises of deuilles by witches and sorcerers...

.

At first, Edward ran his late father's business with the help of his mother; it was located at the Long Shop in the Poultry, adjoining St. Mildred's Church (and four doors away from a London prison, the Poultry Counter; the prison's stocks were outside the Allde shop door). In 1593, Edward moved into his own establishment, at the sign of the Gilded Cup in Fore Street, Cripplegate
Cripplegate
Cripplegate was a city gate in the London Wall and a name for the region of the City of London outside the gate. The area was almost entirely destroyed by bombing in World War II and today is the site of the Barbican Estate and Barbican Centre...

, near the Barbican; Margaret Allde continued the Long Shop operation on her own, at least until 1601.

John Allde had maintained a flourishing business, with as many as eight apprentices simultaneously; Anthony Munday
Anthony Munday
Anthony Munday was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer. The chief interest in Munday for the modern reader lies in his collaboration with Shakespeare and others on the play Sir Thomas More and his writings on Robin Hood.-Biography:He was once thought to have been born in 1553, because...

 had been one of them for a time, and Edward Allde served his own apprenticeship under his father. Edward also succeeded in business, keeping his two presses busy with chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

s, playbooks, and more serious books too. He produced ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

s, songbooks, and jestbooks, and was one of the "original innovators of the merry book trade;" in the years when the Stationer's Company limited ballad printing to only five of its members (1612–20), Allde was one of the five. Toward the end of his career, in the early 1620s, Allde was involved in the syndicate that produced the first English newspapers, along with Nathaniel Butter
Nathaniel Butter
Nathaniel Butter was a London publisher of the early 17th century. 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....

, Thomas Archer, Nicholas Bourne, William Sheffard and Bartholomew Downes.

While his output was massive and significant, Allde's craftsmanship has not been rated highly by modern scholars, critics, and bibliographers. In the succinct verdict of one commentator, "his work was poor."

It was not unusual, in this period, for stationers to run into difficulties with the authorities, both those of their guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 and the higher civil administration; most were fined for infractions large and small, and some, like Butter, Archer, Nicholas Okes
Nicholas Okes
Nicholas Okes was an English printer in London of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, remembered for printing works of English Renaissance drama...

, and William Stansby
William Stansby
William Stansby was a London printer and publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, working under his own name from 1610. One of the most prolific printers of his time, Stansby is best remembered for publishing the landmark first folio collection of the works of Ben Jonson in 1616.-Life:As for...

, were imprisoned. John Allde spent time in the Poultry Compter
Poultry Compter
The Poultry Compter was a small compter or prison run by a Sheriff in the City of London from medieval times until 1815...

 in 1568 for printing a pro-Catholic text. (Both the Tudor
Tudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...

 and Stuart
House of Stuart
The House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...

 regimes were serious about censorship and control of the press.) Edward Allde ran into the same types of troubles in his career: he was fined for printing unregistered works and works to which he did not own the copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

; his presses were shut down twice, and he was once sent to prison by the Secretary of State
Secretary of State (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, a Secretary of State is a Cabinet Minister in charge of a Government Department ....

. In 1623, he admitted to Company officials to "behaving my self turbulently and disorderly...and using unseemly and unfitting words...."

Shakespeare

Edward Allde printed key texts of the original Shakespearean bibliography:
  • Part of the first quarto
    Book size
    The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...

    , the "bad quarto
    Bad quarto
    Bad quarto is a term and concept developed by twentieth-century Shakespeare scholars to explain some problems in the early transmission of the texts of Shakespearean works...

    ," of Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

    (1597), for publisher Cuthbert Burby
    Cuthbert Burby
    Cuthbert Burby was a London bookseller and publisher of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He is remembered for publishing a series of significant volumes of English Renaissance drama, including works by William Shakespeare, Robert Greene, John Lyly, and Thomas Nashe.-Beginnings:Burby...

    .
  • The third quarto of Titus Andronicus
    Titus Andronicus
    Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...

    (1611), for Edward White.
  • The second edition of Robert Chester's Love's Martyr (1611), which contained Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle
    The Phoenix and the Turtle
    The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great published metaphysical poem". The title "The...

    , for Matthew Lownes. (Lownes re-titled the book The Annuals of Great Britain.)


Allde shared the printing of Romeo and Juliet Q1 with colleague John Danter, apparently with the goal of a speedy result. Danter printed sheets A through D, while Allde printed sheets E through K. Only Danter, however, is credited on the volume's title page. Bibliographers determined Allde's participation in Romeo and Juliet in part by tracking damaged type used in Allde's E-K sheets and in three books that he printed in the 1597–9 period.

Others

Beyond the limits of the Shakespearean canon, Edward Allde printed important first editions of plays:
  • Thomas Kyd
    Thomas Kyd
    Thomas Kyd was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama....

    's The Spanish Tragedy
    The Spanish Tragedy
    The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent...

    (undated; 1592?), for Edward White;
  • Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

    's The Massacre at Paris
    The Massacre at Paris
    The Massacre at Paris is an Elizabethan play by the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe. It concerns the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which took place in Paris in 1572, and the part played by the Duc de Guise in those events....

    (undated; 1594?), again for White;
  • George Peele
    George Peele
    George Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...

    's The Battle of Alcazar (1594), for Richard Bankworth;
  • the first and second editions of Samuel Daniel
    Samuel Daniel
    Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian.-Early life:Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married...

    's Cleopatra (1594, 1595) conjointly with printer James Roberts, for publisher Simon Waterson;
  • the first two editions of the anonymous Soliman and Persida (both 1599), again for White;
  • Thomas Dekker's Satiromastix
    Satiromastix
    Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet is a late Elizabethan stage play by Thomas Dekker, one of the plays involved in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres....

    (1602), yet again for White;
  • Daniel's masque
    Masque
    The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...

     The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses
    The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses
    The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses was an early Jacobean era masque, written by Samuel Daniel and performed in the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace on the evening of Sunday, January 8, 1604...

    (1604);
  • Edward Sharpham's Cupid's Whirligig (1607), for Arthur Johnson;
  • Thomas Middleton
    Thomas Middleton
    Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...

    's The Phoenix
    The Phoenix (play)
    The Phoenix is a Jacobean play, a city comedy written by Thomas Middleton c. 1603-4, and performed by the Children of Paul's. It may be Middleton's earliest surviving play....

    (1607), for Arthur Johnson;
  • the anonymous Every Woman in Her Humour (1609), for Thomas Archer;
  • John Mason's The Turk (1610), for John Busby;
  • Philip Massinger
    Philip Massinger
    Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....

    's The Bondman
    The Bondman
    The Bondman is a later Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger, first published in 1624. The play has been called "the finest of the more serious tragicomedies" of Massinger.-Performance and publication:...

    (1624), for John Harrison and Edward Blackmore;


— among others. (Allde's habit of issuing undated books has been a nuisance for modern scholars.) Allde naturally printed plays in other than first editions too — like the second edition of Norton
Thomas Norton
Thomas Norton was an English lawyer, politician, writer of verse — but not, as has been claimed, the chief interrogator of Queen Elizabeth I.-Official career:...

 and Sackville
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset was an English statesman, poet, dramatist and Freemason. He was the son of Richard Sackville, a cousin to Anne Boleyn. He was a Member of Parliament and Lord High Treasurer.-Biography:...

's Gorboduc
Gorboduc (play)
Gorboduc, also titled Ferrex and Porrex, is an English play from 1561. It was performed before Queen Elizabeth I on 18 January 1562, by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple...

(1590
1590 in literature
-Events:*The Children of Paul's perform at Court twice in the first week of January; one of the plays they acted may have been John Lyly's Midas. Later in the year, however, they are banned from performing because of the involvement of their chief script-writer, Lyly, in the Marprelate...

), for John Perrin, and a 1606
1606 in literature
The year 1606 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*May 27 - The English Parliament passes An Act to Restrain Abuses of Players, which tightens the censorship controls on public theatre performances, most notably on the question of profane oaths.*December 26 - Shakespeare's King...

 edition of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part 2
Tamburlaine (play)
Tamburlaine the Great is the name of a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur 'the lame'...

for Edward White. Allde maintained a long-term professional relationship with bookseller White, and printed a number of dramatic and non-dramatic works for him over the course of their careers.

Of course, Allde also printed a wide variety of non-dramatic works of virtually all types then in circulation. He worked on a few of the pamphlets of Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands , English author of pamphlets in prose and verse, which reflect the follies and humours of the lower middle-class life of his time, seems to have had no contemporary literary reputation; but his work throws considerable light on the development of popular literature and social life...

, including The Knave of Clubs (1611
1611 in literature
The year 1611 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - Oberon, the Faery Prince, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....

) and the evocatively-titled Look to It for I'll Stab Ye (1604
1604 in literature
The year 1604 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Isaac Casaubon becomes sub-librarian of the royal library in Paris.*Construction of the Red Bull Theatre in London....

). Allde printed topical works like Henry Petowe's Elizabetha Quasi Vivens: Eliza's Funeral (1603
1603 in literature
The year 1603 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker collaborate on a pageant to welcome the new king James I of England.*Thomas Middleton gets married.*Chronicler Richard Baker, is knighted by James I....

), an item in the mourning literature for Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

. For Cuthbert Burby, Allde printed the sixth volume of The Mirror of Knighthood (1598), the vast, and vastly popular, chivalric romance that was one of the greatest best-sellers of the age. For John Tappe, he printed an early attempt at juvenile literature, Nicholas Breton
Nicholas Breton
Nicholas Breton , English poet and novelist, belonged to an old family settled at Layer Breton, Essex.-Life:...

's The Passionate Shepherd...With many excellent conceited Poems and pleasant Sonnets, fit for young heads to pass away idle hours (1604).

Publishing

Like most printers of his era, Edward Allde concentrated on printing, and left publishing decisions to the booksellers who commissioned printers to print books. Yet again like most printers of his era, Allde did a certain amount of publishing himself; the editions of Cambyses, Like Will to Like, and The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses mentioned above are examples. As with his printing, Allde published a range of works of various types: he issued the tracts and pamphlets that were so common in his period, like the third edition of William Baldwin
William Baldwin (author)
-Life:From the West Country, England, Baldwin studied logic and philosophy at Oxford. On leaving Oxford, he became a corrector of the press to the printer Edward Whitchurch. During the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, it appears that Baldwin was employed in preparing theatrical exhibitions for...

's Beware the Cat (1584); and he published serious works, like a Latin vocabulary by John Posselius (1623
1623 in literature
The year 1623 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 2 - The King's Men perform Twelfth Night at Court on Candlemas....

).

Printers who published usually had to arrange with booksellers for the retail distribution of their products. Allde's edition of Richard Rich's News from Virginia: The Lost Flock Triumphant (1610) reads "to be sold by John Wright" on its title page. Allde's 1607 edition of Gervase Markham
Gervase Markham
Gervase Markham was an English poet and writer, best known for his work The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman first published in London in 1615.-Life:Markham was the third son of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham, Nottinghamshire, and was...

's The English Arcadia was sold by Henry Rocket.

Elizabeth Allde

Allde's widow Elizabeth continued his business from his 1628 death until 1633. Since both Elizabeth and Edward Allde identified themselves on title pages as "E. A." of "E. Allde," 19th-century scholars sometimes confused their works.

Her most significant work in drama may be the first quarto of Thomas Dekker's The Honest Whore, Part 2
The Honest Whore
The Honest Whore is an early Jacobean city comedy, written in two parts; Part 1 is a collaboration between Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, while Part 2 is the work of Dekker alone...

(1630
1630 in literature
The year 1630 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* English literature, drama, and education lose a major patron and benefactor when William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and Lord Chamberlain of England, dies on April 10.-New books:...

), which she printed for Nathaniel Butter. She printed the third edition of the anonymous comedy Wily Beguiled (1630) for Thomas Knight. Elizabeth Allde published and printed the second edition of Robert Greene
Robert Greene
Robert Greene may refer to:*Robert Greene , English writer*Robert Greene *Robert Greene American author of books on strategy*Robert L. Greene, American psychologist...

's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene. Widely regarded as Greene's best and most significant play, it has received more critical attention than any other of Greene's dramas.-Date:The date of authorship of Friar...

(1630), and the third edition of Arden of Faversham
Arden of Faversham
Arden of Faversham is an Elizabethan play, entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 3 April 1592, and printed later that same year by Edward White. It depicts the murder of one Thomas Arden by his wife Alice Arden and her lover, and their subsequent discovery and punishment...

(1633), one of the plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha
Shakespeare Apocrypha
The Shakespeare Apocrypha is a group of plays that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons...

.

Elizabeth Allde also produced non-dramatic works. Some examples: she printed William Prynne
William Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...

's Anti-Arminianism (1630) for Michael Sparke, and Clement Cotton's The Mirror of Martyrs (1631
1631 in literature
The year 1631 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 9 - Love's Triumph Through Callipolis, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace....

) for Robert Allot
Robert Allot
Robert Allot was a London bookseller and publisher of the early Caroline era; his shop was at the sign of the black bear in St. Paul's Churchyard...

. She published and printed a collection of the works of Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...

 (1629
1629 in literature
The year 1629 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*April 6 - Tommaso Campanella is released from custody in Rome, and gains the confidence of Pope Urban IV....

), and Thomas Chaffinger's The Just Man's Memorial (1630). She was one of the four printers who worked on the 1630 collected edition of the works of John Taylor the Water Poet
John Taylor (poet)
John Taylor was an English poet who dubbed himself "The Water Poet".-Biography:He was born in Gloucester, 24 August 1578....

 for publisher James Boler. And she also printed ballads, as her husband had done.

In 1633, the Allde firm passed to Richard Oulton (or Olton), Elizabeth's son-in-law. Oulton maintained his business, in Newgate Street
Newgate Street
Newgate Street refers to:*Newgate and Newgate Street in London*Newgate Street, Hertfordshire, a village in Hertfordshire*Newgate Street, Newcastle, a shopping and entertainment street in Newcastle upon Tyne...

near Christ Church, until 1643.
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