The English Short Title Catalog Record for
Wroth's Publication
This tells us that
the title explicitly identifies Wroth (or "Wroath"--hear the English sounded
vowel?) and links her explicitly to her father, her uncle Phil, and her aunt
Mary. Compare this with Amelia Lanyer's
title, published ten years earlier. It also tells us that the edition
included both the prose romance, with its inset songs ("Love what art thou"
1456), and the sonnet cycle. The pagination suggests strongly that, after
the two un-numbered pages (frontispiece and title), the prose romance took up
278 pages, followed by 269 pages of sonnets, and 48 pages of other material.
The final "2o" indicates it was published in "folio" format, with
type set to produce two pages per sheet as it is fed through the press, a
large-scale edition usually reserved for major works, and unusual in first-time
publications by new authors.
To learn more
about how type was set to print books in the hand-press era (1451-1800), click
here.
According to the
full ESTC record, five copies survive in English collections, and another twelve
survive in American and Australian libraries, including two copies at the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Such a high survival rate
suggests, though it does not prove, that the print run was large, perhaps a
thousand or more copies. Why might a printer be willing to take a risk
like that with such a big, large format edition by a first-time poet?
Wroth,
Mary, Lady, ca. 1586-ca. 1640.