William Jaggard
Encyclopedia
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."
(29 September) 1584. William Jaggard became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Company
on 6 December 1591.
In time, Jaggard developed one of the largest print shops of his generation; he was eventually assisted by his son Isaac (died 1627), who succeeded to his father's business in 1623. In their era, most members of the stationers guild were either printers or booksellers; both were businessmen with their own establishments, journeymen and apprentices, though in anachronistic modern terms printers could be regarded as blue-collar while the booksellers were white-collar retailers. Most commercial publishing was done by booksellers, who chose their books and commissioned printers to print them. The distinction, while generally valid, was not absolute; some successful printers, like Richard Field
, published a significant minority of the works they printed. The Jaggards too did a significant amount of publishing as well as printing; in the most obvious case, they not only printed the First Folio but were partners in its publication with bookseller Edward Blount
. Printers who published often needed a retail outlet for their wares; Jaggard's books were frequently sold by Matthew Lownes at his shop in St. Paul's
Churchyard, the center of the book trade in London.
Jaggard in time rose to a prominent position in his profession; he became the official Printer to the City of London in 1611. When the Stationers Company decided to issue a general catalogue of English books published in 1618–19, Jaggard was chosen as its printer. William Jaggard's brother John Jaggard was also a printer and publisher, and held the rights to print the Essays
of Sir Francis Bacon
. John published editions of the Essays (1606, 1612, 1613) that were printed by his brother William.
William Jaggard printed a wide variety of common materials, including ballads — one example being Adam Bell
, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesle (1610). He also printed books of varying types, including works by Richard Barnfield
and John Davies of Hereford
. To modern book collectors and bibliophiles, Jaggard is known as the printer and publisher of Edward Topsell
's The History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607) and The History of Serpents (1608), famous for their lush and often-reproduced illustrations. The Topsell books can serve to correct a misapprehension about Jaggard's work: from the number of typographical errors and cruxes
in the First Folio, it is sometimes inferred that Jaggard did poor-quality work. The Topsell volumes show another side of Jaggard's professional accomplishment; his firm was capable of high-quality craftmanship.
of Titus Andronicus
for bookseller Edward White and the first quarto of Merchant of Venice for Thomas Heyes
(both 1600); he printed the second quarto of Hamlet
for Nicholas Ling in 1604. Roberts also owned the concession to print the handbills that the actors' companies
used to advertise their productions. Jaggard sought the same monopoly; he did not obtain it, however, until 1615.
Jaggard had a twenty-year involvement with works of the Shakespeare canon, starting with his publication of the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim
under Shakespeare's name in 1599. Jaggard printed an expanded edition of the same work in 1612. In 1619 Jaggard was at the center of the cryptic False Folio
affair; and in the period 1621–23 his print shop was occupied on the massive task of bringing the First Folio into print.
Given his apparently less-than-respectable links with The Passionate Pilgrim and the False folio, commentators have wondered why John Heminges
and Henry Condell
, the two members of the King's Men
who compiled the texts of the First Folio, chose Jaggard for the First Folio job. Some scholars have argued that it may have been a matter of necessity; Jaggard's shop had the capacity for a project of such a scale.
A balanced judgement on Jaggard is hard to achieve. In one view, "William Jaggard was in general a reputable printer and it was only when he was dealing with Shakespeare's work that he became at all unethical...." Harsher verdicts have also been rendered.
A possible descendant of William Jaggard with the same name, sometimes known as Captain William Jaggard (1868–1947), set up a printing and bookselling establishment in Stratford-upon-Avon
in 1909 — the Shakespeare Press, 4 Sheep Street. The bibliophilic later Jaggard was responsible for the massive Shakespeare Bibliography (1911). Though he tried, he never proved his descent.
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...
printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of 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"...
, most notably the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
of Shakespeare's plays. Jaggard's shop was "at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key in Barbican."
Life and work
He was the son of a John Jaggard, a citizen of London and a barber-sugeon by profession; the elder Jaggard was already deceased when his son began an eight-year apprenticeship with printer Henry Denham at MichaelmasMichaelmas
Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel is a day in the Western Christian calendar which occurs on 29 September...
(29 September) 1584. William Jaggard 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...
on 6 December 1591.
In time, Jaggard developed one of the largest print shops of his generation; he was eventually assisted by his son Isaac (died 1627), who succeeded to his father's business in 1623. In their era, most members of the stationers guild were either printers or booksellers; both were businessmen with their own establishments, journeymen and apprentices, though in anachronistic modern terms printers could be regarded as blue-collar while the booksellers were white-collar retailers. Most commercial publishing was done by booksellers, who chose their books and commissioned printers to print them. The distinction, while generally valid, was not absolute; some successful printers, like Richard Field
Richard Field (printer)
Richard Field was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.-Life and career:...
, published a significant minority of the works they printed. The Jaggards too did a significant amount of publishing as well as printing; in the most obvious case, they not only printed the First Folio but were partners in its publication with bookseller Edward Blount
Edward Blount
Edward Blount was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras, noted for his publication, in conjunction with William and Isaac Jaggard, of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623....
. Printers who published often needed a retail outlet for their wares; Jaggard's books were frequently sold by Matthew Lownes at his shop in St. Paul's
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...
Churchyard, the center of the book trade in London.
Jaggard in time rose to a prominent position in his profession; he became the official Printer to the City of London in 1611. When the Stationers Company decided to issue a general catalogue of English books published in 1618–19, Jaggard was chosen as its printer. William Jaggard's brother John Jaggard was also a printer and publisher, and held the rights to print the Essays
Essays (Francis Bacon)
Essayes: Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and Allowed was the first published book by the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon. The Essays are written in a wide range of styles, from the plain and unadorned to the epigrammatic...
of Sir Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
. John published editions of the Essays (1606, 1612, 1613) that were printed by his brother William.
William Jaggard printed a wide variety of common materials, including ballads — one example being Adam Bell
Adam Bell
Adam Bell was a legendary English outlaw.He and his companions William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough lived in Inglewood Forest near Carlisle and were figures similar to Robin Hood...
, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesle (1610). He also printed books of varying types, including works by Richard Barnfield
Richard Barnfield
Richard Barnfield , English poet, was born at Norbury, Staffordshire, and brought up in Newport, Shropshire.He was baptized on 13 June 1574, the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman. His obscure though close relationship with Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars...
and John Davies of Hereford
John Davies of Hereford
John Davies of Hereford was a writing-master and an Anglo-Welsh poet. He is usually known as John Davies of Hereford in order to distinguish him from others of the same name....
. To modern book collectors and bibliophiles, Jaggard is known as the printer and publisher of Edward Topsell
Edward Topsell
Edward Topsell was an English cleric and author best remembered for his bestiary.Topsell attended Christ's College, Cambridge, earned his B.A. and probably an M.A. as well, before beginning a career in the Church of England. He served as the first rector of East Hoathly, and subsequently became...
's The History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607) and The History of Serpents (1608), famous for their lush and often-reproduced illustrations. The Topsell books can serve to correct a misapprehension about Jaggard's work: from the number of typographical errors and cruxes
Crux (literary)
Crux is a term applied by palaeographers, textual critics, bibliographers, and literary scholars to a point of significant corruption in a literary text...
in the First Folio, it is sometimes inferred that Jaggard did poor-quality work. The Topsell volumes show another side of Jaggard's professional accomplishment; his firm was capable of high-quality craftmanship.
Shakespeare
In 1608 Jaggard bought out the business of the elderly James Roberts, a printer with significant connections to the Shakespeare canon. Roberts printed the second quartoBook 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"...
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...
for bookseller Edward White and the first quarto of Merchant of Venice for Thomas Heyes
Thomas Heyes (Publisher-bookseller)
Thomas Heyes was the publisher-bookseller who published the first quarto edition of William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, in London, in 1600. He traded from 'St Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of the Green Dragon’. - The Shakespeare Connection :...
(both 1600); he printed the second quarto of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
for Nicholas Ling in 1604. Roberts also owned the concession to print the handbills that the actors' companies
Playing company
In Renaissance London, playing company was the usual term for a company of actors. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholders , who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" — that is, the minor actors and...
used to advertise their productions. Jaggard sought the same monopoly; he did not obtain it, however, until 1615.
Jaggard had a twenty-year involvement with works of the Shakespeare canon, starting with his publication of the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Passionate Pilgrim is an anthology of 20 poems that were attributed to "W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are accepted by present-day scholars as authentically Shakespearean.-Editions:...
under Shakespeare's name in 1599. Jaggard printed an expanded edition of the same work in 1612. In 1619 Jaggard was at the center of the cryptic False Folio
False Folio
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....
affair; and in the period 1621–23 his print shop was occupied on the massive task of bringing the First Folio into print.
Given his apparently less-than-respectable links with The Passionate Pilgrim and the False folio, commentators have wondered why John Heminges
John Heminges
John Heminges was an English Renaissance actor. Most noted now as one of the editors of William Shakespeare's 1623 First Folio, Heminges served in his time as an actor and financial manager for the King's Men.-Life:Heminges was born in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire in 1556...
and Henry Condell
Henry Condell
Henry Condell was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623....
, the two members of the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
who compiled the texts of the First Folio, chose Jaggard for the First Folio job. Some scholars have argued that it may have been a matter of necessity; Jaggard's shop had the capacity for a project of such a scale.
End
William Jaggard suffered deteriorating health in the final decade of his life; by the time of the First Folio he was old, infirm, and blind. The actual work on the Folio must have been done by his son Isaac. The elder Jaggard died in November 1623, a month before the Folio's publication.A balanced judgement on Jaggard is hard to achieve. In one view, "William Jaggard was in general a reputable printer and it was only when he was dealing with Shakespeare's work that he became at all unethical...." Harsher verdicts have also been rendered.
A possible descendant of William Jaggard with the same name, sometimes known as Captain William Jaggard (1868–1947), set up a printing and bookselling establishment in Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
in 1909 — the Shakespeare Press, 4 Sheep Street. The bibliophilic later Jaggard was responsible for the massive Shakespeare Bibliography (1911). Though he tried, he never proved his descent.