Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - title page, p.1'Of shapes transformed...'.
A schoolbook that provided many sources for ideas in plays and poems
One of the first books that Shakespeare experienced at Stratford grammar school was the Metamorphosis of Ovid. Written in Latin ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - binding view
A notable binding contemporary with Shakespeare.
A royal coat-of-arms was stamped in gold on this volume in the seventeenth century. The same gilded ownership coat-of-arms adorns the back as the front ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - binding, front board
The front board of a Shakespearian sourcebook.
The original owner of this book probably purchased it from the printer, a friend of William Shakespeare, Richard Field, or from his publisher Thomas Wight. ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - Caius Martius Coriolanus, p.221.
The story of Coriolanus in Shakespeare's source.
The central facts for the play of Coriolanus were taken by from North’s translation of Plutarch's Lives. The fable of the belly and its rebellion ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - detail, p. A4r.
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 ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - detail, printer and publisher imprint
The imprint of Shakespeare’s fellow Stratfordian.
Richard Field, who was two years older than Shakespeare, was son of Henry Field, a Stratford tanner. In September 1579, at the age of seventeen ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - fore-edge title
An Elizabethan identification of a Shakespearian sourcebook.
An early owner of this volume stored his books in the same way as many of his contemporaries, with the fore-edge facing outwards, rather ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - Julius Caesar, p.712.
The story of Julius Caesar, as read by Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s first knowledge of Latin and the Roman heroes had been acquired at school, and later for his play Julius Caesar he took the story ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - p.1, Theseus.
Theseus is first in North's study of the Greeks as read by Shakespeare.
The first story in North’s translation of Plutarch is of the Greek king Theseus whose marriage to Hippolyta, Queen of the ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - title page, printer's device
A printer’s ornament known to Shakespeare.
Each Elizabethan printer used a personal ‘device’ on the title page of his work. Richard Field, the printer who came from Stratford, used ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1603 - title page.
Shakespeare’s source for stories of Greece and Rome.
Shakespeare’s contemporary, the lawyer and scholar Sir Thomas North (?1535 - 1601) translated the biographies of fifty Greek and Roman ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1612 - Antony and Cleopatra, p. 922, detail.
Shakespeare followed this description of Cleopatra.
Shakespeare became very familiar with Plutarch’s stories, and he often followed the wording of sections in North’s translation very ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1612 - Coriolanus's mother, Volumnia, detail, p.238.
Shakespeare's source for Coriolanus's mother, Volumnia.
On this page from Plutarch’s ‘Life of Coriolanus’, Volumnia, Patrician mother of Coriolanus, agrees to go with Virgilia, his ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1612 - dedication detail, p. A3r.
The translator's dedication of a Shakespeare edition repeated in a later edition.
In his dedication to Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas North recognized her especial interest in the classics. He called ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1612 - ornamental headpiece above dedication, p. A3r, detail.
The translator's dedication to Shakespeare's queen.
Above the translator’s dedication the printer, Richard Field, placed a decorative woodcut with a central figure playing the lute, as the Queen ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, 1612 - title page.
A favourite book of William Shakespeare, printed by a fellow Stratfordian.
North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives was first printed by Thomas Vautrollier in 1579. The book's success led ...
Plutarch, The lives of the noble Grecians and Romaines, London, Richard Field, 1612 - dedication, p. A3r.
Shakespeare’s queen has books of history dedicated to her.
Sir Thomas North, a lawyer, whose father had been an MP and privy councillor to Henry VIII and to Mary Tudor, dedicated his translation ...
Publius Ovidius Naso [Ovid], The XV bookes Metamorphosis, translated... by Arthur Golding..., 1603, title-page.
A School text studied by Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare knew this series of stories about miraculous transformations, written by the Roman poet Ovid well as they formed an important part of regular ...