Assise of Bread [John Powell, editor], 1608 - woodcuts, p.D1v, detail.
Bakers at work: Shakespeare's neighbours.
In towns few people baked their own bread on account of the dangers of chimney fires. The baker’s role was one of the most important in any community, ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - Family tree, p. A6r.
The author's family tree illustrates a Shakespeare sourcebook.
In this finely printed edition the preliminary pages of Chaucer’s Works include a portrait of the author, surrounded by an elaborate ...
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 ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail
A merchant’s wife and her companion in Shakespeare's London.
Shakespeare's leading ladies frequently reflect contemporary practice by having a companion, or housekeeper, who is not a servant ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of a citizen and his servant
An alderman and his servant in Shakespeare's London.
The Londoner's fashionable gown with hanging sleeves is 'guarded' [edged] with fur. His servant carries a sword and buckler as a sign that he will ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Londoners
Townsfolk of Shakespeare's England.
For country merchant class people such as the Shakespeare family the fashions of the city were slow to be adopted. Shakespeare was swift to comment in his plays ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c.1572 - A contemporary hand-coloured map of London
London: capital city of Shakespeare's England.
William Shakespeare came to London, England's capital city, about 1588. His career in the next twenty years was centred here, as he became the most popular ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c.1572 - 'Elizabethan' map of London
The walled City of London in Shakespeare's time.
Elizabethan London was surrounded by ancient walls, with entrances at Ludgate, Billingsgate, Newgate and Bishopsgate. The medieval maze of streets within ...
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 ...
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 Modell of witt [Decameron Book 1], 1625 - title page, p.A2r.
Italian stories provide source material
Giovanni Boccaccio is known chiefly for Decameron, which was written in 1353. This is a collection of a hundred tales told by ten people who have taken refuge ...
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 - portrait, on back of title-page, p.B6v.
John Gerarde, herbalist: a contemporary of Shakespeare.
The large linen ruff was a fashion imported from the Netherlands, but adopted by all who could afford the starches needed to create such an accessory. ...
John Gerarde, The Herball, 1597 - title-page
An owner of a volume contemporary with Shakespeare has replaced a missing title-page.
The decorative title-pages of books have occasionally been damaged, or removed by their owners. This copy of ...
Kenilworth Castle From The Tiltyard
J. Brandard Kenilworth Castle AD 1575 From The Tilt Yard Ink on paper 225mm x 250mm This image was printed by M. and N. Hanhart, and published by C. Elston. It depicts a view of figures in 16th Century ...
Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1634 - Ariodante and Dalinda, illustration pl.V, p.31.
Illustration for the story on which Shakespeare based a comedy sub-plot.
The tale of Ariodante, and Ginevra impersonated by Dalinda is the subject of a fine engraving in the 1634 edition of Harington's ...