Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Prayers for wisdom, p.89r.
Private prayers in Shakespeare's time.
Many members of the gentry and the nobility had ordained clergymen as part of their households, and had private indoor chapels, or churches in the grounds of ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Printers woodcuts, details. p.90v
The hand-press was well-known to Shakespeare.
In the 1580s when William Shakespeare came to London the Stationers' Company had been established for thirty years, since 1557, and it attempted to control ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Printing tradesmen, p.90v.
Printing books in Shakespeare's time.
By the time of William Shakespeare the printing trade had been established in England for a hundred years since William Caxton first set up a press in London in ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - reminders of mortality, p.112r.
‘Momenti Mori’: reminders to Shakespeare's contemporaries.
The ‘momenti mori’ (reminders of death) are skulls and skeletons that may also have provided inspiration for dramatic ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Shelter strangers woodcut, p.53r, detail.
Christian charity offering shelter, in Shakespeare's time.
Strangers traveling in the countryside were often made welcome, as Autolycus, Polixenes and Camillo find at the feast in the play of The Winter’s ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - shepherdess woodcut , p.99v, detail.
A countrywoman: Shakespeare married a local farmer's daughter.
When he was eighteen Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a local landowner and farmer, who was seven years his elder. She ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Tending the sick woodcut, p.74v, detail.
A family death-bed: a scene familiar to Shakespeare.
A generation before William Shakespeare's birth, England was a Roman Catholic country changed by the actions of Henry VIII who declared himself ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Tending the sick woodcut, p.74v, detail.
Women in the home in Shakespeare's time.
The role of women, though legally inferior to men, was in effect recognised of equal importance as they were expected to carry out all the responsibilities ...
Richard Day, A Booke of Christian prayers..., 1581 - Wisdom and prudence, p.66v.
Reading and study is praised in Shakespeare's England.
The marginal illustration in Day's Book of Christian Prayers tells its readers that 'wisdom is better than gold'. The woodcuts are reminders of ...
Simon Latham, Latham's falconry, 1615 - instructions for the mews, Book 2, p.11.
The care of hawks: a familiar occupation for Shakespeare.
Falconry was not only a sport of the nobility. In Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor Master Page invites his friends to early morning ...
Simon Latham, Latham's falconry, 1615 - second title page of Book 2, p.1v., detail
Everyday travel on horseback for Shakespeare’s fellow countrymen.
Most Elizabethans, and people for centuries later, traveling both within a local area or, like Shakespeare, from the country ...
Simon Latham, Latham's falconry, 1615 - title page book 2.
Petruchio talks of training his hawk in The Taming of The Shrew
Petruchio who has won a wife with a fortune in The Taming of the Shrew, talks about training her to his wishes by starving her, and constraining ...
Simon Latham, Latham's falconry, 1615 - title page, [A1r].
A falconry handbook on a subject well known by Shakespeare.
Falconry was a popular sport with the Elizabethan gentry and nobility. Latham’s handbook describes all aspects of ‘the princely ...
The Antiquities of Warwickshire
This is a hard-backed book containing historical information and descriptions of Warwickshire towns and villages by William Dugdale. The book includes maps and engravings of monuments, c.1656.
The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times
A hard backed book describing the history of illumination, containing many chromolithographic plates, 1860.
The Birmingham Post Newspaper Cutting
A newspaper cutting from The Birmingham Post - Midland Edition, 13th July 1951. It describes Randolph Turpin's return to Leamington Spa as World Middle-Weight boxing champion. Randolph Turpin was born ...
The Boy's Own Treasury Of Sports And Pastimes
A hard-backed book, with a green cover with gold embossed decoration. The title, The Boy's Own Treasury Of Sports And Pastimes, is written on the spine. The book was presented to William Lockwood Nundy ...
The History of Lillington, Leamington Spa
This is a hard backed, illustrated book by William Cooper describing the history of Lillington, c.1940.