Shakespeare's First Reader

"The facts of Richard Stonley's life are lucidly set out by Felicity Heal in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Jason Scott-Warren's book offers something else. The dust jacket features Arcimboldo's painting 'The Librarian', which depicts a man made out of books. Shakespeare's First Reader is in part the literary equivalent. It is a fascinating blend of book history, biography and cultural history, and, like Arcimboldo's pictorial compilation, both vivid and original."—The Times Literary Supplement

"[A] lively account of the first person known to have purchased a printed book by Shakespeare, the popular narrative poem Venus and Adonis . . . In Scott-Warren's engrossing and imaginative Shakespeare's First Reader, he sleuths through a vast inventory of household objects and journals with unrivalled, archival expertise and originality to reveal how Stonley's emotional and financial life was constituted by his treasured, relic-like books . . . Like Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis, Scott-Warren's book is a delight."—Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History

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Although Richard Stonley is fairly well known to scholarship, the full range of available documentation for this Elizabethan worthy has not been exploited until now. The principal focus of Shakespeare’s First Reader being bibliographical, Scott-Warren’s chief sources for Stonley’s library are the inventory of Stonley’s house in Aldersgate, with more than four hundred book titles...Shakespeare’s First Reader is a “must have”—or at least a “must read”—for anyone interested in printed books, private libraries, readership, social history, or prison literature from the time of Elizabeth I.

"—Journal of British Studies

"Jason Scott-Warren presents us with a compelling portrait not just of one man but of a key moment in England's literary past. Through a gradual accumulation of evidence, he creates a picture of early modern book culture that is richer, stranger, and more important than the possibility of pinning down who read Shakespeare first, or even how Shakespeare was received. A superb read, packed with gems."—Helen Smith, University of York

"A learned, wide-ranging, witty, and meticulous examination and example of life-writing."—Adam G. Hooks, University of Iowa