Shakespeare's Library: What Shakespeare Read, and Where He Read It
One of the few biographical details we know for certain about Shakespeare the playwright is how much he read. Over 200 books are quoted in his plays or serve as sources for them, and more are being discovered every year.
What did he read? Mostly history, literature, plays, and poems, with some books on mathematics and medicine. In Elizabethan England, this represents a tiny minority of the books actually published. According to a study by Douglas Bruster, approximately 16 out of every 19 Elizabethan books printed were sermons or books of theology. (These were often political in intent as well as religious.) Two out of every 19 were scientific. Only one out of every 19 was a “liberal arts” book--law, history, poetry, or rhetoric.
Somewhere around 14,500 traceable publications in all were printed during the years 1558-1616. (In contrast, about 150,000 books a year are published by traditional publishers alone in the United States, and over a million from all sources.)
Using Bruster's numbers, we can estimate about 750-800 books of liberal arts were published in England between 1558-1616--and Shakespeare is known to have read over 200 of them, and written about 40 more.
Most people read far more books than they cite; so, probably, did Shakespeare. Shakespeare seems to have had remarkable access to a relatively rare kind of books.
Where did he read books? There were no public libraries in England. The largest known library, Lord Lumley’s, was 7000 volumes. There were about 10 libraries of over 1000 volumes in England: the Queen’s, the universities’, the Inns of Court’s, and several other private libraries, including Sir William Cecil's.
Now go and count your books...I counted about 650 in my office.
Shakespeare the poet read some books in foreign languages and/or not published in England, such as Diana enamorada. These would have been specially imported for a private buyer, or read in the original country. Shakespeare the poet may have traveled; he knows France, Italy, and even 16th-century Dubrovnik in geographical detail. Shakespeare the poet also seems to have had access to some manuscript sources, notably one of the four extant Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. This unique manuscript, the Nowell Codex, was then in the possession of Sir William Cecil, who acquired it in 1562; it was being translated by Laurence Nowell while he was tutoring Oxford.
William Shakespeare of Stratford is not known to have traveled abroad. He was not a student at a university or an Inn of Court, nor is he known to have been patronized by any of the owners of large libraries. He had no access to formal study of modern foreign languages. He is not known to have had access to the Nowell Codex. That does not make him illiterate or dumb; he had the opportunities of any reasonably well-educated man of his time, and it's speculated he could have read books printed by his friend Richard Field.
Those are good opportunities, but they don't add up to the same books that Shakespeare read.
What did he read? Mostly history, literature, plays, and poems, with some books on mathematics and medicine. In Elizabethan England, this represents a tiny minority of the books actually published. According to a study by Douglas Bruster, approximately 16 out of every 19 Elizabethan books printed were sermons or books of theology. (These were often political in intent as well as religious.) Two out of every 19 were scientific. Only one out of every 19 was a “liberal arts” book--law, history, poetry, or rhetoric.
Somewhere around 14,500 traceable publications in all were printed during the years 1558-1616. (In contrast, about 150,000 books a year are published by traditional publishers alone in the United States, and over a million from all sources.)
Using Bruster's numbers, we can estimate about 750-800 books of liberal arts were published in England between 1558-1616--and Shakespeare is known to have read over 200 of them, and written about 40 more.
Most people read far more books than they cite; so, probably, did Shakespeare. Shakespeare seems to have had remarkable access to a relatively rare kind of books.
Where did he read books? There were no public libraries in England. The largest known library, Lord Lumley’s, was 7000 volumes. There were about 10 libraries of over 1000 volumes in England: the Queen’s, the universities’, the Inns of Court’s, and several other private libraries, including Sir William Cecil's.
Now go and count your books...I counted about 650 in my office.
Shakespeare the poet read some books in foreign languages and/or not published in England, such as Diana enamorada. These would have been specially imported for a private buyer, or read in the original country. Shakespeare the poet may have traveled; he knows France, Italy, and even 16th-century Dubrovnik in geographical detail. Shakespeare the poet also seems to have had access to some manuscript sources, notably one of the four extant Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. This unique manuscript, the Nowell Codex, was then in the possession of Sir William Cecil, who acquired it in 1562; it was being translated by Laurence Nowell while he was tutoring Oxford.
William Shakespeare of Stratford is not known to have traveled abroad. He was not a student at a university or an Inn of Court, nor is he known to have been patronized by any of the owners of large libraries. He had no access to formal study of modern foreign languages. He is not known to have had access to the Nowell Codex. That does not make him illiterate or dumb; he had the opportunities of any reasonably well-educated man of his time, and it's speculated he could have read books printed by his friend Richard Field.
Those are good opportunities, but they don't add up to the same books that Shakespeare read.