Jodocus Hondius, America, 1619, Map of the Americas - detail, Florida and the east coast.
Virginia became England’s colony in Shakespeare’s time.
Virginia, named for England’s virgin queen, Elizabeth, was established in 1584 by Walter Raleigh, and Jamestown was settled ...
Jodocus Hondius, America, 1619, Map of the Americas - detail, Flying fish (a real species) and an unidentified creature.
Sea monsters were legendary for Shakespeare's contemporaries.
In The Tempest (2,2, lines 24-40) Trinculo imagines he has found a sea-monster when he discovers Caliban hiding from the approaching storm ...
Jodocus Hondius, America, 1619, Map of the Americas - detail, The Pacific Ocean and Solomon Islands, showing a galleon and a sea creature, probably a whale.
Ships from Shakespeare’s England explored the world.
The sailing vessels that traded up the river Thames to London and set off from the English Channel, or from West country ports, were familiar ...
Jodocus Hondius, America, 1619, Map of the Americas - detail, The southern Carribean including Trinidad, also a galleon.
Ships from Shakespeare’s London sailed to the Caribbean.
As English settlements were established in the Americas pamphlets describing their experiences were published in London. The slave trade ...
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, [London], 1634 - p. 18, D1v
A Shakespeare collaboration.
The Two Noble Kinsmen includes pageantry in the 'masque' style that Shakespeare introduced to his late 'romance' plays like The Tempest and Pericles, and has scenes reminiscent ...
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, [London], 1634 - p.19, D2r.
Shakespeare writes of Palamon and Arcite in prison.
The story of the Theban princes Palamon and Arcite is that told by the Knight in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. From their prison window the princes ...
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, [London], 1634 - title page
Shakespeare collaborates on writing a play.
Towards the end of his career in London Shakespeare collaborated with the younger playwright, John Fletcher in the writing of Henry VIII in 1612, and then ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - garden detail on title page
Shakespeare set scenes in gardens such as this
Many scenes in Shakespeare’s plays are set in gardens. The formal lay-out of beds and hedges seen on this title-page engraving were familiar to ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - Apples are described, p.1275, detail.
The uses of apples: Shakespeare's references to fruit.
The Herball of John Gerarde explains how apple trees cost little to maintain, but produce a fine crop for everyone. The orchards of Kent and of ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - apples woodcut, p.1274, detail.
Apples, at the end of a meal are mentioned in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Gerarde’s herbal includes all kinds of fruit and trees as well as flowers and vegetables, many of which ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - Clove gilloflowers, p.472.
Carnations are the source for a Shakespearian argument in The Winter’s Tale.
Gerarde described carnations [pinks] with their ancient name ‘clove gillivors’ and Shakespeare’s ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - daffodils, p.108
b>Autolycus sings of daffodils in The Winter’s Tale
Autolycus, the former courtier turned pedlar, first arrives on the scene singing of the joys of spring: ‘When daffodils begin to peer... ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - gilloflowers (Wall Flowers), p.370.
The names of plants, discussed by Shakespeare.
The detail with which Gerarde describes plants, vegetables and fruit as well as flowers assisted contemporary herbalists and housewives with their gardens. ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - Goosetree [barnacles], detail, p.1391, detail.
Truth and Myth in Shakespeare's books of reference: The Barnacle Goose Tree.
Shakespeare includes, in The Winter's Tale (4.4), a similar myth to Gerarde’s tale of a barnacle-goose tree in the ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - Goosetree [Barnakle tree], p.1391.
The Elizabethan myth of the goose-tree.
Myth and legend, passed on by word of mouth until it was written down and becomes almost a fact, included the story that Gerarde records at the end of his herbal, ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - Goosetree described by Gerarde, p.1392.
Locations of plants known to Shakespeare's contemporaries.
Herbals and gardening books in Elizabethan England often describe the locations in which a plant may be found in the wild, as well as where ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - hand drawn detail added to title page.
Garden detail replaced in an amateur way by an owner of a volume contemporary with Shakespeare.
This copy of the first edition of Gerade’s Herball has original hand-colouring of all the illustrations ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - holly, p. 1155,detail.
Holly and its uses in Shakespeare's time.
There were twenty-seven holy days, or ‘holidays’ spread through the Elizabethan year, but the twelve days of Christmas, at the time of the winter ...