Valentine Simmes

Valentine Simmes (active: 1585–1622) was a printer of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He worked in London and had his workshop on "Adling Hill" near "Bainards Castle" in the "House of the White Swan". Simmes is known for the good quality of his prints. He was responsible for the production of a number of Shakespeare's quartos . Simmes began working as a printer in 1585. Nothing is known about his life.

Shakespeare

Between 1597 and 1604 Simmes produced nine Shakespeare quartos for various London stationers and booksellers.

For the bookseller Andrew Wise , Simmes printed:

• Richard III , Quarto 1 (1597)
• Richard II , Quarto 1 (1597)
• Richard II, Quarto 2 (1598)
• Richard II, Quarto 3 (1598)

For Wise and William Aspley :

• Henry IV, Part 2 , Quarto 1 (1600)
• Much Ado About Nothing , Quarto 1 (1600)

For Thomas Millington :

• Henry VI, Part 2 , Quarto 2 (1600)

For Nicholas Ling and John Trundell:

• Hamlet Quarto 1 (1603)

For Matthew Law:

• Henry IV, Part 1 , Quarto 3 (1604).

Simmes also made the Quarto 3 of The Taming of a Shrew for Nicholas Ling in 1607. This is a variant of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew , whose relationship to Shakespeare's work is unclear. For Thomas Pavier , Simmes printed Quarto 1 by Sir John Oldcastle in 1600 , a work that is counted among the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha . In 1607, Simmes printed the second edition of Lawrence Twine's The Pattern of Painful Adventures for the "widower Newman" . This work is believed to be a source from Pericles, Prince of Tire , a collaborative effort by George Wilkins and Shakespeare.

Other dramas

Simmes also printed a number of works by other Elizabethan authors:

• George Chapman : On Humorous Day's Mirth . 1599
• Thomas Dekker : The Shoemaker's Holiday . 1600
• Christopher Marlowe : The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus . 1604 for Thomas Bushell
• Ben Jonson : The Coronation Triumph . 1604, for Edward Blount
• Ben Jonson: The Entertainment at Althorp . 1604, for Edward Blount
• John Marston : The Malcontent . 1604, for William Aspley
• Ben Jonson: Hymenaei . 1606, for Thomas Thorpe
• George Peele : The Troublesome Reign of King John . Quarto 2, 1611, for John Helme

While some entrepreneurs like William Jaggard were both printer and publisher at the same time, Simmes mostly limited himself to the printing business.

Other - not dramatic - works

Simmes also printed non-dramatic works. For the bookseller Richard Bonian he produced Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) a volume of poetry by Emilia Lanier . For John Clapham's book The historie of England (1602) he took care of the printing, the editor was John Barnes.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Pp. 353-356, "Printing and Publishing" article.
2. ^ Halliday, pp. 483-484.
3. ↑ Chambers, Volume 3, pp. 306-307.
4. ↑ Chambers, Volume 3, pp. 251, 291, 378, 391, 422; Volume 4, p. 23.
5. ↑ Marlowe: Four Plays. P. 463.
6. ↑ Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum.
7. ^ The historie of England. The first booke Declaring the estate of the ile of Britannie vnder the Roman Empire.

bibliography

• Chambers, Edmund Kerchever : The Elizabethan Stage. 4 volumes, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1923.
• Ferguson, W. Craig: Valentine Simmes, Stationer: A Bibliographical Study of an Elizabethan Printer and Publisher. Birmingham (UK) 1959; Bibliographic Society of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 1968.
• Halliday, FE : A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Baltimore. Penguin. 1964.
• Marlowe, C .: Four Plays. Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Dr. Faustus. Brian Gibbons (Ed.), Methuen, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-4081-4949-2
• Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-19-811735-3

Web links

• Literature by and about Valentine Simmes in the bibliographic database WorldCat