Publishing King Lear (1608) at the Sign of the Pied Bull

Abstract

A subject of ongoing debate, contention, and revision, the publication of Shakespeare's King Lear in 1608 has divided textual scholars seeking to understand the text's provenance and the substantive differences between the quarto and folio versions of the play. Accounts have often concentrated on the printing process, undertaken by the workshop of Nicholas Okes, and how it shaped the textual state of the first quarto, an edition that has sometimes been derided as one of the period's worst printed. 1 Limited attention, however, has been paid to the publisher of King Lear -Nathaniel Butter. As Peter Blayney outlines, the publisher was 'the prime mover' in the early modern book trade, responsible for acquiring the text, paying for its manufacture, and often for selling the copies wholesale (to other booksellers) and retail (to individual book buyers). It was, as Blayney clarifies, 'the publisher, not the [trade] printer, who decided that the text should be made public'. 2 Butter made this decision for King Lear. He and his bookshop at the Sign of the Pied Bull near St Austin's Gate in Paul's Churchyard also became a permanent part of King Lear through the playbook's title-page imprint. Although books could be bought and traded throughout London and, indeed, across the country, Butter's bookshopand, therefore, Paul's Churchyardwere a part of King Lear wherever it went, introducing a web of cultural and political associations that could shape the experiences of readers.

“With much labour out of scattered papers”: The Caroline Reprints of Thomas Heywood’s1and2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody

“…4 From his bookshop at the Sign of the Pied Bull in Paul's Churchyard, Butter became the public face of the enterprise and he acquired a popularand sometimes unflatteringreputation as a news maker. 5 In The Staple of News, Ben Jonson alludes to him as a "decay'd Stationer" who "knows Newes well, can sort and ranke 'hem […] And for a need can make 'hem"; and in the "Continued Inquisition" appended to A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors (1625), Abraham Holland describes the walls of the churchyard as "Butter'd with weekely Newes compos'd in Pauls" that offer nothing more than "shamefull lies." 6 Jonson and Holland not only position Butter as a publisher and distributor of news, but also as a creator who has a formative role in the "Batter" of news that "besmeare[s] | Each publike post, and Church dore."…”