Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - The Knight's Tale, Fol. 1, B1r.
The source for Shakespeare and Fletcher's play The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which pilgrims each contribute a story to entertain their fellow travelers, begins with the ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - title page, p.a1r
A Shakespeare source in England’s mediaeval poetry.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s works, written in the time of Richard II, at the end of the 13th century, were known and admired by Elizabethan contemporaries ...
George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such... , frontispiece with portrait
George Eliot (born Mary Ann Evans) was a local authoress based in the Coventry and Nuneaton district, from 1819-1880.
An original engraving of this portrait is held by the National Portrait Gallery, ...
George Tuberville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, 1611 - A royal picnic, p.91.
A picnic for Shakespeare's royal patron.
Among the many engravings of huntsmen and their dogs that illustrate Turberville’s book of the chase, is this of the mid-day break for a meal with wine, ...
George Tuberville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, 1611 - p. 35.
Hunting with dogs as in Shakespeare's plays.
Turberville’s handbook covers the training of dogs for hunting deer or hare. The woodcut illustrations show the kind of hunt Shakespeare would have ...
George Tuberville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, 1611 - title page.
The care of hunting dogs in Shakespeare's time.
Turberville’s handbook was popular in Queen Elizabeth’s time and was reprinted after James I succeeded her on the English throne. The care ...
Ghost II (Black)
Sir Terry Frost (13th October 1915 - 1 September 2003) Ghost II (Black), 1991 Etching and aquatint 435mm x 405mm A square, measuring 300mm x 300mm, indented into the paper by approximately 0.5mm. Two ...
Ghost II (Grey)
Sir Terry Frost (13th October 1915 - 1 September 2003) Ghost II (Grey), 1991 Etching and aquatint 435mm x 405mm Square, measuring 305mm x 305mm, indented into the paper by approximately 0.5mm. Line drawing ...
Giambattista Geraldi Cinthio, Hecatommithi, 1580 - Othello reference, Vol.2, p.159 detail.
A Shakespeare source: The story of Othello.
Novella 7 in the third part of Hecatommithi is the story of an ensign who seeks revenge when his lust for 'Disdimona' is rejected. It was this tale that ...
Giambattista Geraldi Cinthio, Hecatommithi, 1580 - printer's device, title page volume 2, detail.
A printer's device on a Shakespeare Italian sourcebook.
Many of the books to be found on the bookstalls of cosmopolitan Elizabethan London were imported from the printing houses of France, and Italy. ...
Giambattista Geraldi Cinthio, Hecatommithi, 1580 - title page, Vol 2.
A source in Italian for Shakespeare.
It is not known whether Shakespeare ever travelled abroad, but several Italian sources for his plays had no published English translation at the time he was writing. ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1620 - book 2 p.13v
Fine printing in Shakespeare's time.
This volume was printed by Isaac Jaggard who worked alongside his father, William, and later inherited the family printing house. Isaac’s fine edition of ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1620 - book 2, p.112r detail
Fine printing in Shakespeare's time.
The engravings in Jaggard’s edition of Boccaccio do not illustrate the individual stories, but were used to decorate title page and then, possibly to save ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1620 - Book 2, p.112r.
A ribald tale in a Shakespeare sourcebook
Shakespeare’s wide range of reading gave him a knowledge of many Italian writers and their work that he might potentially use in his plays, or poems. ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1620 -Book 2, title page
A Shakespeare source translated into English.
The two volumes of the Decameron in the English translation by John Florio came from the workshop of the same printer, Isaac Jaggard, who was responsible ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1620 - title page, book 2
A Shakespeare source with a fine binding.
This volume's fine binding given to it by a nineteenth-century owner, is in green Morocco goatskin, with fine gold-tooling, including decoration along the ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 1625 - Book 1, p.107v
A source for Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well.
It is possible that Shakespeare may have been able to read, or knew the Decameron in its original Italian. His patron the Earl of Southampton employed ...
Giovanni Boccaccio, The modell of wit [Decameron], Book 1, 1625 Novel 9, 3rd Day (T5 recto), detail
Ornamental illustration in a Shakespeare sourcebook.
Elizabethan book illustrations are frequently simple woodcuts, although other volumes, such as Jaggard’s Boccaccio use fine engravings. This ...