Thomas Pavier

The Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (1619), published by Pavier together with William Jaggard as part of the so-called False Folio from 1619

Thomas Pavier (born before 1600; died 1625 in London ) was an English publisher and bookseller of the early 17th century. His relationship with the publications of the early printed editions of William Shakespeare's works and the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha , gave him a dubious reputation among Shakespeare scholars.

life and work

Pavier became a publisher in an unusual way. Instead of starting a career as an apprentice to the Stationers Company , he joined the Stationers on June 3, 1600 as one of the few young men from the ranks of the Drapers Company , one of over 100 Livery Companys . Pavier was an apprentice to William Barley , a textile merchant who was also a bookseller. Pavier entered the book trade in the same year, his shop was in the house "Cat and Parrots", opposite the "Pope's Head Alley" in the central London borough of Cornhill.

In his career spanning more than 25 years, Pavier became wealthy publishing popular religious scriptures. At the beginning of his career, however, he worked at the lower end of the public reputation of his time by editing popular books , pamphlets and dramatic texts. One of the first of the ballad collections published by him was The Fair Widow of Watling Street and Her Three Daughters (c. 1600). Similar works with lurid titles followed, such as 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).

Pavier's business flourished and he became a stationer overseer in 1622, but continued to publish ballad collections. When the Stationer limited the printing of ballads in 1612-20, Pavier was one of the few who had a license to do so. In 1624 he became a member of the "Ballad Stock," an association of stationers who had specialized in the publication of these collections.

Dramatic texts

One of the first acts of Pavier as Stationer was on 11 August 1600, the entry for the popular drama Captain Thomas Stukeley into the Stationers' Register . He subsequently published other plays such as The Fair Maid of Bristow (1605) and The First Part of Hieronimo (1605), an anonymous "prequel" to Thomas Kyd 's The Spanish Tragedy . Pavier also published other editions of Kyd's drama: on August 14, 1600 he acquired the rights to The Spanish Tragedy and got its fourth edition in 1602. He published the third quarto of A Looking Glass for London , by Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene in 1602 , and the second quarto of the anonymously published piece Jack Straw in 1604.

Relationships with the work of Shakespeare

Thomas Pavier is known for his involvement in the publication of Shakespeare's authentic plays and the so-called "Shakespeare Apocrypha":

• Sir John Oldcastle - he got the entry on August 11, 1600 and published it in the same year. The first quarto was published anonymously and ascribed to Shakespeare in 1619.
• Henry V - Pavier acquired the rights to the piece on August 14, 1600. In the same year it was published as an unauthorized version by Thomas Millington and John Busby. Pavier got the second quarto in 1602.
• Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3 - Pavier acquired the rights to the pieces from Millington on April 19, 1602.
• A Yorkshire Tragedy - Pavier entered the play on May 2, 1608 in the register and published it in the same year with the (incorrect) indication of Shakespeare's authorship.

Pavier had other connections to Shakespeare's work. When Thomas Millington sold his rights to the second and third parts of Henry VI to him in 1602, he also acquired the copyright from Titus Andronicus . But Pavier did not publish the piece. The third quarto of "Titus" was obtained in 1611 by Edward White. In 1608 Pavier published The History of Hamblet. This is the English translation of the Hamleter story that François de Belleforest had translated into French from the Latin version of the Historia Danica des Saxo Grammaticus in his collection Histoires Tragiques .

The "Wrong Folio"

Pavier was involved in the "False Folio Affair" in 1619 with William Jaggard . This involves the publication of ten dramatic texts as four-high editions. These included seven plays by Shakespeare, a collaborative work and two pieces attributed to Shakespeare. Some of the quartos have falsified information on the front page. Early editions 2 and 3 of Henry VI were titled The Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster. published in one volume. This volume and four others ( Henry V , Sir John Oldcastle , A Yorkshire Tragedy , and Pericles, Prince of Tire ) have the initial "TP" on the title page.

The role of Pavier is one of the many ambiguities in this affair. He was a business partner of Jaggard, but the exact nature of their collaboration is controversial among scholars. Because of the belief that pavier plays a major role in this matter, some scholars use the term "pavier-quartos" to refer to the printed editions concerned.

Individual evidence

1. ^ FE Halliday: A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964 . Penguin, Baltimore 1964, p. 357.
2. ^ Joseph Ames: Typographical Antiquities . London 1790, Vol. 3, p. 1363.
3. ↑ Gerald D. Johnson, "Thomas Pavier, Publisher, 1600-1625," Library, 6th series, Vol. 14 (1992).
4. ↑ Thomas Betteridge, Greg Walker (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama. P. 568; Lukas Erne: Beyond the Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd (Revels Plays Companions Library). 2001. pp. 9 and 14-47.
5. ^ EK Chambers , The Elizabethan Stage. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1923, Vol. 3, pp. 328, 395; Vol. 4, pp. 12, 22, 47.
6. ↑ Chambers, Vol. 3, pp. 306-7, 481-2, 486; Vol. 4, pp. 7, 54.
7. ^ Sonia Massai: Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007.