THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Lucrece was entered on the Stationers' Kegister in 1594 as follows: “9 niaij: Master harrison Senior: Entred for his copie vnder th[e h]and of master Senior Cawood, Warden, a booke entituled the Ravyshement of Lucrece. … vj. C.”

The poem was printed in the same year, with this title: “LVCRECE. ∣ LONDON. ∣ Printed by Richard Field, for John Harrison, and are ∣ to be sold at the signe of the White Grey-hound ∣ in Paules Churh-yard. 1594 ∣. Dr. Furnivall remarks—Leopold Shakspere, Introduction, p. xxxv.—that “this first edition was probably seen through the press by Shakspere himself.” Apparently, however, copies of the edition differ in some important points of reading; see Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. ix. p. xiv. Lucrece was reprinted in 1598 in octavo, and the Cambridge editors mention four other important editions, in 1600, 1607, 1616, and 1624. The edition of 1616 purported to be “newly revised;” but the words were evidently a publisher's trick to attract purchasers. It is clear, I think, from the comparatively limited number of impressions through which Lucrece passed, that the poem was never so popular as its forerunner, Venus and Adonis. Like the earlier book, Lucreceis dedicated to the Earl of Southampton; and we can scarcely be wrong in assuming it to be the “graver labour” of which the poet had previously spoken.