Thomas Pavier (died 1625) was a London publisher and bookseller of the early seventeenth century. His complex involvement in the publication of early editions of some of Shakespeare's plays, as well as plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, has left him with a "dubious reputation."

Life and work

Pavier came to the business of publishing in an unusual way: instead of serving the normal apprenticeship in the

Stationers Company The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery company, livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company ...

, he was one of several young men who transferred to the Stationers from the Drapers Company on 3 June 1600. Pavier had served an apprenticeship under William Barley, a draper who doubled as a bookseller. Pavier was able to set himself up in business that year; his shop was located at the sign of the Cat and Parrots, "over against Pope's Head Alley" in Cornhill. Early in his career Pavier was found guilty of various misdemeanours by the Court of Stationers. One conviction was 'for printing certain books and ballads without a licence' or 'without authority or entrance' in the

Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. This was a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with England's publishing industry, including prin ...

. Along with William Barley, his brother Roger and printer Simon Stafford he was also accused of illegally printing a Latin grammar manual. Four thousand copies of the book were discovered in Roger's home and confiscated by members of the Stationers' Company. In June 1598 Pavier backed Stafford in an attempt to prosecute Cuthbert Burby for riot who, along with others, had been acting for the Stationers' Company. The complaint was dismissed by the Stationers' Court and the four men found themselves incarcerated in

Fleet Prison Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the River Fleet. The prison was built in 1197, was rebuilt several times, and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846. History The prison was built in 1197 off what is now ...

over the affair. Over the course of his quarter-century career, Pavier grew rich by publishing popular works of

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

literature in multiple editions. At the start of his career, however, he worked at the lower end of the prestige scale in printed matter in his era: he primarily published

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

chapbook A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...

s, pamphlets, and playbooks. One of his earliest products in the ballad line was ''The Fair Widow of Watling Street and Her Three Daughters'' (c. 1600). He followed this with many comparable works, with titles like ''The Lamentable Murthers of Sir John Fitz'' (1605), ''A Cruel Murther in Worcestershire'' (1605), ''The Fire in Shoreditch'' (1606), ''The Traitors' Downfall'' (1606), ''The Shepherd's Lamentation'' (1612), and ''The Burning of Tyverton'' (1612). He also published ballads by

Thomas Deloney Thomas Deloney (born ; died in or shortly before 1600) was an English silk-weaver, novelist, and ballad writer. Biography Thomas Deloney was born sometime in the middle decades of the 16th century; the precise date is not recorded. Although ofte ...

and Samuel Rowlands. Pavier's firm prospered and he eventually rose to be his guild's Junior Warden in 1622, but Pavier never abandoned ballads. In the years 1612–20, when the Stationers Company limited ballad printing to only five of its members, Pavier was one of the five. In 1624 he was a member of the "Ballad Stock," a syndicate of stationers dedicated to the production of ballads in print.

Drama

One of Pavier's earliest acts as a stationer was to enter the popular though anonymous play ''Captain Thomas Stukeley'' into the

on 11 August

1600 In the Gregorian calendar, it was the first century leap year and the last until the year 2000. Events January–March * January 1 – Scotland adopts January 1 as New Year's Day instead of March 25. * January 20 – Hugh O'Neill, Earl of ...

(though the earliest edition now known was Pavier's of

1605 Events January–March * January 1 – William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', copyrighted 1600, is given its earliest recorded performance, and witnessed by the Viscount Dorchester. * January 7 – Shakespeare's play ' ...

). He published several other plays, including the anonymous ''The Fair Maid of Bristow'' (1605), and ''The First Part of Hieronimo'' (1605), the anonymous "prequel" to

Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of ''The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, ...

's ''

The Spanish Tragedy ''The Spanish Tragedy'', or ''Hieronimo is Mad Again'' is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, ''The Spanish Tragedy'' established a new genre in English theatre: the re ...

''. Pavier also published editions of Kyd's play: he obtained the rights to ''The Spanish Tragedy'' on 14 August 1600 and issued the fourth edition in

1602 Events January–March * January 3 – Battle of Kinsale: The English defeat Irish rebels and their Spanish allies. (The battle happens on this date according to the Gregorian calendar used by the Irish and Spanish but on Thursday, 24 Dece ...

. He published the third

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

of '' A Looking Glass for London'', by

Thomas Lodge Thomas Lodge (September 1625) was an English writer and medical practitioner whose life spanned the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Biography Early life Thomas Lodge was born about 1557 in West Ham, the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge ...

and Robert Greene, also in 1602, and the second quarto of the anonymous ''Jack Straw'' in

1604 Events January–March * January 1 – The earliest recorded performance of William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' takes place at Hampton Court prior to the main presentation, ''The Masque of Indian and China K ...

Shakespeare

Thomas Pavier is best remembered for his editions of Shakespearean plays, and plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha: * '' Sir John Oldcastle'' – he registered the play on 11 August 1600 and published it before the end of that year. This first quarto was issued anonymously; the attribution to Shakespeare would not appear until

1619 Events January– March * January 12 – James I of England's Banqueting House, Whitehall in London is destroyed by fire."Fires, Great", in ''The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Co ...

. * ''

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (1216–1281 ...

'' – Pavier obtained the rights to the play, first printed in 1600, from Thomas Millington and John Busby, on 14 August 1600; he published the second quarto of ''Henry V'' in 1602. * '' Henry VI, Part 2'' and ''

Henry VI, Part 3 ''Henry VI, Part 3'' (often written as ''3 Henry VI'') is a Shakespearean history, history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas ''Henry VI, Part 1, ...

'' – Pavier secured the rights to the previously printed versions of these plays from Thomas Millington on 19 April 1602. These were the early alternative versions of the two plays, short-titled ''The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster'' and ''The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York''. Pavier did not publish the plays immediately, however; they did not appear in print again until they were included in the so-called False Folio affair (see below). * '' A Yorkshire Tragedy'' – Pavier registered the play on 2 May

1608 Events January–March *January 2 – The first of the Jamestown supply missions returns to the Colony of Virginia with Christopher Newport commanding the ''John and Francis'' and the ''Phoenix'' bringing about 100 new settlers to ...

, and published it that year with a title-page attribution to Shakespeare.

False Folio

Most controversially, Pavier was somehow involved with

William Jaggard William Jaggard ( – November 1623) was an Elizabethan era, Elizabethan and Jacobean era, Jacobean printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of William Shakespeare, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's pl ...

in the cryptic

False Folio False Folio is the term that Shakespeare scholars and bibliographers have applied to William Jaggard's printing of ten Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean plays together in 1619, the first attempt to collect Shakespeare's work in a single v ...

affair of 1619, which involved the publication of ten Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean plays in quarto editions, some with falsified title pages. The early versions of ''2'' and ''3 Henry VI'' were printed in one volume, titled ''The Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster.'' This volume and four others – ''Henry V'', ''Sir John Oldcastle'', ''A Yorkshire Tragedy'', and ''

Pericles, Prince of Tyre ''Pericles, Prince of Tyre'' is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio. It was p ...

'' – were issued with the initials "T. P." on their title pages. The only complete extant copy of the False Folio resides at the

Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materia ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Among the many points about the False Folio that are uncertain and obscure is Pavier's precise role in the matter. Pavier was a business associate of Jaggard; but the real nature of his connection is debated by scholars.Sonia Massai, ''Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor,'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Some modern commentators argue that Pavier's role in the matter may have been more substantive than Jaggard's, and call the disputed texts the "Pavier quartos." In any event, Shakespeare scholars would come to refer to Pavier as a 'notorious piratical publisher'.

Other connections

Pavier had other, minor links with the Shakespeare canon. When Thomas Millington transferred his rights to ''2'' and ''3 Henry VI'' in 1602, Millington's copyright to ''

Titus Andronicus ''The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus'', often shortened to ''Titus Andronicus'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first t ...

'' was included in the deal. Pavier, however, did not publish an edition of that play; the next, third edition of

1611 Events January–March * January 26 – Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully is forced by Queen regent Marie's Regency Council to resign as chief minister of France. He is replaced by Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Vill ...

was issued by another bookseller, Edward White. In 1608, Pavier published a volume titled ''The History of Hamblet.'' This featured the Hamlet story as recorded in Shakespeare's sources, the ''Historia Danica'' of

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author ...

and the ''Histoires Tragiques'' of

François de Belleforest François de Belleforest (1530 – 1 January 1583) was a French writer, poet and translator of the Renaissance. He was born in Samatan, into a poor family, and his father (a soldier) was killed when he was seven. He spent some time in the cour ...

. The book was likely published to capitalize on the popularity of Shakespeare's play.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pavier, Thomas Publishers (people) from London 1625 deaths English booksellers Year of birth unknown