Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, 1603 - Sonnet to the Countess of Bedford,p. A4r.
Dedicatory verses to a noble patron of Shakespeare's contemporary.
As well as a dedicatory letter, John Florio’s translation of Montaigne's Essays also included dedicatory verses to his patron ...
Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, 1603 - title page
A French text translated by an associate of Shakespeare.
English born, John Florio, son of a protestant Italian refugee, was tutor to Lady Jane Grey, and later to Shakespeare’s patron Henry Wriothesley, ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book III, p. 32v. 'Phoebe'.
Stories for references in Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's reading, and school memories of Ovid gave him not only references for stories that he could use, but names such as Phoebe, which occurs in the story ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book III, p. 33r, Hunting dogs'.
Shakespeare's source for Theseus praising his hounds in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Shakespeare drew on his memories of Ovid's story of Diana and Actaeon when Duke Theseus praises the barking ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book IV, p. 43v, 'Pyramus & Thisbe'..
Shakespeare’s source for the play of 'Pyramus and Thisbe'.
Nick Bottom, the weaver and leading actor amongst the Athenian craftsmen in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, knows little about ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book IV, p. 44r,'Thisbe flees the lioness'..
Stories for sources in Shakespeare.
The tale of the doomed lovers Pyramus and Thisbe was among those that Shakespeare remembered from Ovid, and used for A Midsummer Night’s Dream>, 1,2, lines ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book X, p. 119v, 'Orpheus' story'..
Stories for sources in Shakespeare.
When Shakespeare came to London he had great opportunity for contact with books, whether in the city, on the bookstalls around St. Paul's Churchyard, or from the ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book X, p. 120r, 'Orpheus and Euridice'..
Stories for sources in Shakespeare.
The story of Orpheus, the poet and singer who tried to save his wife, the nymph Euridice, from death by charming the king of the underworld with his music, was in ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book XII, p. 144v, 'Achilles'.
A story source for Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.
The fame of the Greek warrior, Achilles, and his companions was well-known in literature, but Shakespeare may first have discovered the story ...
Ovid, Metamorphosis, 1603 - Book XII, p. 145r, 'Trojan Nestor'..
A source for Shakespeare’s character of Nestor, the elderly nobleman in Troilus and Cressida
This page in Ovid's story of the heroes of Greece and Troy may have provided Shakespeare with ideas ...
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 ...