Thomas Thorpe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Thorpe (c. 1569 or 1570-1635?) 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 was considered highly disreputable because evidence suggests that he might have done so without Shakespeare's consent, with critic Sidney Lee later calling him "predatory and irresponsible."

1 Life
- 1.1 The Sonnets
2 Notable published works
3 References

[edit] Life

The son of an innkeeper in Barnet, Middlesex, Thorpe worked as an apprentice to Richard Watkins for nine years in a small shop. In 1594 Thorpe obtained his publishing rights, but was still without his printing rights. His first book published was The First Book of Lucan by Christopher Marlowe, the copyright for which he received from Edward Blount, who would come to be a close friend of Thorpe's. He then returned the favor by dedicating Lucan to Blount, which was quite unorthodox in that publications were generally dedicated to noblemen, local celebrities, aristocracy, royalty, and other men of distinction. In 1605 Thorpe's publishing career took off, as he published George Chapman's All Fools and Ben Jonson's Sejanus, the latter of which was also provided by Blount. It has even been speculated that Jonson himself may have even been involved in the printing himself, with one critic noting "The exactness of the marginal annotations, the closeness with which the typography conveyed Jonson's metrical intentions, and the corrections made in proof all suggest that Jonson oversaw the printing himself."^{[citation needed]} In 1635 Thorpe retired to a poorhouse in Ewelme and died there a shortly after in his 60's.

[edit] The Sonnets

In 1609, Thorpe published the most important work of his career, Shakespeare' Sonnets. His apparent disregard for Shakespeare's permission earned him a poor reputation, although modern author Katherine Duncan-Jones has argued that he was not such a "scoundrel", as he was portrayed, and the amiable and admirable Blount would certainly not associate with him if he was a scoundrel. It has even been suggested that Shakespeare did sell his manuscript to Thorpe, because of his acquaintance with Jonson as an actor in Sejanus, who may have recommended Thorpe to him as a good publisher. The dedication, which is addressed to a mysterious Mr. W.H., may have been written either by Shakespeare himself or by Thorpe. Popular belief, however, is that Shakespeare is the author of the dedication, but the identity of Mr. W.H. is not known. Thorpe was probably responsible for the arrangement of the sonnets, with 1-17 being the "procreation sonnets", 18-126 being love sonnets to the Fair Youth (for the most part), and 127-154 being written on a variety of subjects, including politics, sex, and the Dark Lady. Critics have argued that Thorpe's arrangement of the sonnets is clumsy and superficial. ^{[citation needed]}