Bibliographical description

The first appearance of a book called The Paine of Pleasure is in a Stationer's Registry entry for September 9, 1578; it is described as a compilation by Nicholas Breton, licensed to Richard Jones.[2] It is unclear what relationship that book has to The Paine of Pleasure, since from the evidence of the single surviving title page, the book was printed for Henrie Car by an unnamed printer, John Charlewood or Henry Denham [3], and was published on October 17, 1580. This unique perfect copy survives in the Pepysian Library in Cambridge (Pepysian Library, no. 1434; ESTC S94255). Besides the two poems, it includes the title page, two short dedications (one to Lady Douglas Sheffield, one to the reader), and "Amorous Epistles," a sixteen-page selection of letters and riddles in prose and verse.[4]

The second copy, now in the British Library (C.57.d.49.(3.); ESTC S126004), comprises only the two long poems, "The Paine of Pleasure" and "The Author's Dream." This fragment is bound up in a single volume with copies of The Paradise of Dainty Devices and The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions; this volume once belonged to the antiquarian Anthony à Wood, who has annotated The Paradise of Dainty Devices with the information that the "E.O." poems in this volume were the work of the Earl of Oxford, and noted in The Paine of Pleasure that the author was Munday and the publication date was 1585.

These two copies have sometimes been taken to represent two editions; however, comparing the two copies of "The Paine of Pleasure" shows them at least to be identical. It is more likely that these two books represent two copies of a single issue.

The Paine of Pleasure has been reprinted by UMI (Ann Arbor MI, 1988) as Early English Books, Tract Supplement D33 (C.57.D.49[3]); this reprint apparently contains only the two poems. The poem has had a modern reprint on LION, but the book is not yet reproduced in EEBO.