Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - detail, p. A4r.

Description:The translator's notes 'To the Reader' of a Shakespeare sourcebook.

Sir Thomas North, writing in January 1579, attached a ‘Foreword’ to the readers of his translation of Plutarch’s Lives, in which he suggested his stories are intended for all readers, not just for the students of the classics at the Universities. This is the equivalent of an author's brief advertising paragraph on the dust-jacket of a modern book. Although not all Elizabethans could write with ease, all who had a little schooling, including girls, were able to read, at least simple ballad, or pamphlet literature.

Full title: Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines compared together Translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot... and out of French into English by Sir Thomas North, Imprinted at London by Richard Field for Thomas Wight, 1603.