Richard Tottel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The Poets of that age, wrote for their own delectation and for that of their friends: and not for the general public. They generally had the greatest aversion to their works appearing in print."--Tottel's Miscellany. Songes and Sonettes by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey |
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Richard Tottel (died 1594) was an English publisher and influential member of the legal community. He ran his business from a shop located at Temple Bar on Fleet Street in London. The majority of his printing was centered on legal documents, but he is most known for a collection he edited and published in 1557 called Songes and Sonnettes.
Early life
Son of William Tothill (the more common spelling of the family name) and Elizabeth Matthew, Richard Tottel's early life is not one easily deciphered. Tottel's father was a wealthy citizen of Exeter, England and held many public offices in his life span including bailiff in 1528, sheriff in 1529, and eventually mayor in 1552. Tottel was the third child of eleven, having three brothers and seven sisters.
At some point, approximately 1540, Tottel was indentured to a William Middleton, a printer of law books in London. Towards the end of Tottel's indentureship, in 1547, William Middleton died. Middleton's wife remarried within seven months to William Powell, another printer of Law books. The new Mrs. Powell and William Powell freed Tottel, who then went on to take over the printing house of Henry Smithe at the Sign of the Hand and Star after Smithe's death in 1550. Sometime after, Tottel married Joan Grafton who bore him one son, William, and several daughters.
The following is an incomplete list of works published by Tottel:
- William Baldwin – A Treatise of Morall Phylosophye Contaynyng the Sayinges of the Wise (1547)
- Thomas More – A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation (1553)
- John Lydgate – Fall of Princes (1554)
- Stephen Hawes – Pastime of Pleasure (1555)
- Translation of Cicero's De Officiis by Nicholas Grimald (1556)
- Translations of the second and fourth books of Virgil's Aeneid by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1557)
- Thomas More – Works (1557)
- Thomas Tusser – A Hundreth Good Points of Husbandry (1557)
- Tottel's Miscellany
- First edition (1557), second edition (31 July 1557), third edition (1558), fourth edition (1565), fifth edition (1567), and sixth edition (1574)
- Arthur Brooke – The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562)
- William Painter (author) – The Palace of Pleasure (1566–67)
- James Dyer – Collection of Cases (1586)<ref name="dictionary" /><ref name="gale"/>
