John Benson (died 23 January 1667) was a London

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

of the middle seventeenth century, best remembered for a historically important publication of the

Sonnets A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

and miscellaneous poems of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

in 1640. John Benson began his career as a

stationer Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) ...

in 1635; he maintained shops in

Chancery Lane Chancery Lane is a one-way street situated in the ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. It has formed the western boundary of the City since 1994, having previously been divided between the City of Westminster and the London Boro ...

(from 1635 on) and St. Dunstan's Churchyard in Fleet Street (1640 and after). In his publishing career, Benson generally concentrated on the lower end of the market for printed matter in his era; he "specialized in the publication of

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s and broadsides." Yet he published books too, like

Joseph Rutter Joseph Rutter ( fl. 1635) was an English poet and translator. Life Rutter belonged to the Tribe of Ben, the literary group around Ben Jonson who had received commendatory verse from Jonson. Rutter appears to have lived with Sir Kenelm Digby for ...

's ''The Shepherds' Holy-Day'' (1635); he issued

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

's ''Execration Against Vulcan'' in 1640. Benson partnered with other stationers for some projects. He joined with fellow stationer John Waterson to publish the

first quarto The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually a ...

Fletcher Fletcher may refer to: People * Fletcher (occupation), a person who fletches arrows, the origin of the surname * Fletcher (singer) (born 1994), American actress and singer-songwriter * Fletcher (surname) * Fletcher (given name) Places United ...

and Massinger's '' The Elder Brother'' (1637). Benson and John Saywell issued

Francis Quarles Francis Quarles (about 8 May 1592 – 8 September 1644) was an English poet most notable for his emblem book entitled ''Emblems''. Early life Francis Quarles was born in Romford, Essex, and baptised there on 8 May 1592. His family had a long hist ...

's ''Hosanna, or Divine poems on the Passion of Christ'' (1647); in 1651 Benson formed a partnership to print music books with

John Playford John Playford (1623–1686/7) was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churc ...

. Their edition of John Hilton's ''Catch That Catch Can'', a collection of "catches, rounds, and canons", appeared in 1652.

Shakespeare's ''Poems'', 1640

Benson entered his edition of Shakespeare's poems in the Stationers' Register on 4 November 1639. (Since

Thomas Thorpe Thomas Thorpe ( 1569 – 1625) was an English publisher, most famous for publishing Shakespeare's sonnets and several works by Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. His publication of the sonnets has long been controversial. Nineteenth-century ...

, the original publisher of the Sonnets and ''

A Lover's Complaint "A Lover's Complaint" is a narrative poem written by William Shakespeare, and published as part of the 1609 quarto of '' Shakespeare's Sonnets''. It was published by Thomas Thorpe. "A Lover’s Complaint" is an example of the female-voiced co ...

'', had died c. 1635, his copyright to the material was likely considered lapsed.) The volume was published in

octavo Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multip ...

the following year. The title of the publication reads:

POEMS: VVRITTEN BY WIL. SHAKE-SPEARE. Gent. Printed at ''London'' by ''Tho. Cotes'', and are to be sold by ''Iohn Bensen'', dwelling in S^t. ''Dunstans'' Church yard. 1640.

The book opens with engraver William Marshall's portrait of Shakespeare – a reduced and reversed version of Martin Droeshout's engraving from the

First Folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...

. This is followed by Benson's preface "to the Reader",

commendatory poem The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory, or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric as outlined in Aristotle's '' Rhetoric'', to be used to praise or blame during ceremonies. Orig ...

s by Leonard Digges and John Warren, and then the poems themselves. The edition combined most of Shakespeare's sonnets (numbers 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, and 126 are omitted), mingled with poems from ''

The Passionate Pilgrim ''The Passionate Pilgrim'' (1599) is an anthology of 20 poems collected and published by William Jaggard that were attributed to " W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are considered authentically Shakespearean. These are two ...

'' (the corrupt 1612 edition), plus ''A Lover's Complaint'', ''

The Phoenix and the Turtle ''The Phoenix and the Turtle'' (also spelled ''The Phœnix and the Turtle'') is an allegorical poem by William Shakespeare, first published in 1601 as a supplement to a longer work, ''Love's Martyr'', by Robert Chester. The poem, which has be ...

'', Milton's poem to Shakespeare from the

Second Folio The Second Folio is the 1632 edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare. It follows the First Folio of 1623. Much language was updated in the Second Folio and there are almost 1,700 changes. The major partners in the First Folio had ...

, poems by

, Francis Beaumont, Robert Herrick and others, and miscellaneous pieces.

Thomas Cotes Thomas Cotes (died 1641) was a London printer of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, best remembered for printing the Second Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632. Life and work Thomas Cotes became a "freeman" (a full member) of the S ...

, Benson's printer for the ''Poems'', also printed the Shakespeare Second Folio (1632), and the first quarto of ''

The Two Noble Kinsmen ''The Two Noble Kinsmen'' is a Jacobean tragicomedy, first published in 1634 and attributed jointly to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Its plot derives from " The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's '' The Canterbury Tales'', which h ...

'' (1634). Benson is notorious for rearranging the order of the sonnets into groups, which he presented as complete poems, for which he invented titles. He also changed the pronouns in several of the sonnets to create the impression that they were written to a woman. The "derivative and unauthoritative character" of Benson's edition was not recognized until Shakespeare scholar

Edmond Malone Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first p ...

re-directed critics' attention to the original 1609 edition of the Sonnets; "for almost a century and a half Benson's mangled hodgepodge was an accepted repository of Shakespeare's lyric verse."Wells, Stanley, and Gary Taylor. ''William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion.'' New York, W. W. Norton, 1997; p. 38.

References

External links

''Poems written by Wil. Shake-Speare. Gent.''
1640) from the Warnock Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, John Early editions of Shakespeare Publishers (people) from London 1667 deaths Year of birth unknown