Richard Field: Shakespeare's Publisher

The busy world of Elizabethan book-making

In the archives of the Stationers’ Hall lies Liber B, which records entries for apprenticeships to the Stationers, as well as of rights to published works (an early form of copyright), amongst other records. It’s a wonderful object: you could spend hours leafing through it, the spiky handwriting of the clerks both alluring and alien.

It delivers a fascinating insight into the backgrounds of the apprentices to the Stationers, flocking to London from all over the country: Shropshire, Rutland, Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Kent, Devon, Norfolk, Surrey and more. They were the same sort of class as the playwrights: the sons of yeomen, husbandmen, even labourers (like Henry Kildale, apprenticed to Robert Walgrave), as well as shoemakers, millers, sadlers, haberdashers, barber-surgeons, fletchers, bakers, butchers, weavers, tailors, wheelwrights, chandlers: even the odd gentleman’s son. It’s also notable that several apprentices are bound to widows: Joane Jugge, for example, the wife of the late Richard Jugge, who would have carried on his business; there’s a Mistres Stirrop and a Mistres Brome. This was a thrusting, busy world, with all these boys out to make their fortunes.

Liber B is notable for many things, not least the entry for Richard Field, in 1579:

“Richard ffeylde sonne of Henry Ffeilde of Stratford vppon Aven in the county of Warwic Tanner: Hath put himself Apprentis to george byshop citizen and staconer of London for viJ yeres from michaelmas next.”

Field was 17; William Shakespeare at this time would have been around 15. The Fields were neighbours of the Shakespeares in Stratford, and Richard and William would have been at school together at the Grammar. Richard’s father was a tanner, Will’s a glover; the two trades would undoubtedly have had reasons to interact. It’s not hard to imagine a young Will, perhaps apprenticed to a butcher in Stratford, looking on with envy, as Richard hared off to London to work in the book trade.

Field was apprenticed to George Bishop (who had another apprentice, called John Oxenbridge, a baker’s son from Croydon), with the first six years of his time to be served under Thomas Vautrollier. He was a Huguenot, who published translations, as well as the music of William Byrd and Thomas Tallis (amongst other things). Vautrollier died in 1587, not long after Field’s apprenticeship ended; and his widow, Jacqueline continued on the business. I don’t know how common it was for apprentices to marry their late boss’ wives, but clearly Richard and Jacqueline made a success of both business and pleasure, for shortly afterwards, they were hitched.

The newly wedded couple continued to print a variety of translated materials, including Ariosto's Orlando Furioso by Sir John Harington, who happened to be Queen Elizabeth’s godson. Field became known as the best publisher of mathematical treatises in London. And, of course, in 1593 Field published William Shakespeare’s first printed work, Venus and Adonis.

Many of Will’s sources were printed by Field, like Holinshed, Ovid, Plutarch, Spenser (the first edition of The Faerie Queene) and Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. Again, it’s not hard to picture Will Shakespeare popping in to Field’s to browse through his latest productions, or glean through the manuscripts. The Fields had a shop on Wood Street; Shakespeare lodged on Silver Street, nearby, with the Mountjoys, who were also Huguenot refugees.

It was a mightily successful career: Field rose to become Master of the Stationers’ Company. When he died, he left his estate to be shared between his second wife, and his own children and those of Thomas Vautrollier, two of whom also seem to have become printers or booksellers.

A contemporary, and friend of Will’s, Field’s life has many similarities. A boy from the provinces who rose to prominence in a literate profession, working for aristocrats and famous poets, mathematicians and musicians; with international connections, business-minded yet also highly literary. Like Will, he was one of many apprentices from similar backgrounds, all jostling for position and success in a London that was primed for it. Whilst John Oxenbridge has faded into the historical record, Field, like Will, stands out. And the more we know about people like Oxenbridge, like Robert Walgrave, George Bishop, Jacqueline Vautrollier and the Mistresses Stirrop and Brome, the more we understand the world of the Bankside playwrights: where you could find your friend setting the type for the latest mathematical treatise, talk of the most recent translations, poems and plays, and run into the Queen’s godson as you leave, tripping out over the cobbles, perhaps back to the theatres, or onwards for a pint of ale.