Introduction

Abstract Starting off from an early reader of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, whose thoughts are preserved in the margins of Englands Parnassus, the introduction lays out the book’s argument. It gives an overview of the five anthologies printed between 1599 and 1601 that featured Shakespeare’s work: The Passionate Pilgrim, Bel-vedére, Englands Parnassus, Englands Helicon, and Loves Martyr. It follows the floral metaphors in many of their titles to elucidate their connections to poetic anthologies and commonplace books, introducing the humanist theories of commonplacing behind them, and locating them within a sixteenth-century civic humanist project in England. Drawing on recent scholarship, it discusses Shakespeare’s literary ambitions and early writings, and clarifies the book’s relationship to the history of early modern reading, before giving an outline of following chapters.