Early Modern England Encyclopedia: Composition and Publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Composition and Publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

No alternative text available. — Title page of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published in 1609. Courtesy of the British Library. Shelfmark c.21.c.44. Public Domain.

Overview of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Para1 Believed to have been written in the early to mid-1590s, Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets was published in 1609 by the printer and bookseller Thomas Thorpe. Scholars presume that at least some of the sonnets were written earlier, because in 1598, Francis Meres mentions Shakespeare’s sugared Sonnets among his private friends, etc. in the same document where he lists some of Shakespeare’s popular plays. Circulation of handwritten, recopied poems like Shakespeare’s sonnets between friends and acquaintances was a common literary practice of the time. It was viewed as more genteel than publication.

Para2Two of the poems, #28 and 144, had already been printed in a 1599 literary anthology called The Passionate Pilgrim. Scholars see ties between several plays of the mid to late 1590s, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard II, with the sonnets as they appeared in the 1609 volume.

Dates of Composition for the Sonnets

Para3Many scholars have sought to date the composition of the sonnets using language and style, with strong consensus that they were not written in the sequence in which they appeared in 1609. The latest conclusions group them as follows:

Sonnet 145 (about Anne Hathaway?), composed around 1582

Sonnets 127–144, 146-154, composed 1590–1595

Sonnets 87–103, composed 1594–1595

Sonnets 61–77, composed 1594–1595

Sonnets 1–60, composed 1595-97 and revised 1600–1609

Sonnets 78–86 (the Rival Poet sequence), composed 1598–1600

Sonnets 104–26 (mostly to the Friend), composed 1600–1604

Puzzles About the Dedication to Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Para4On the dedication page when the Sonnets were printed, the following dedication appears, presumably written by Thomas Thorpe, whose initials appear at the end:

TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF

THESE INSUING SONNETS

MR. W.H. ALL HAPPINESSE

AND THAT ETERNITIE

PROMISED

BY

OUR EVER-LIVING POET

WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING

FORTH

T.T.

Para5Scholars and literary historians believe the main candidates for Mr. W.H. are

Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, but his initials are H.W., not “W.H.”. If he is the dedicatee, it is very unusual that he is addressed as “Mr.” and not Lord. Southhampton was an young nobleman who sailed on various expeditions and was an investor in the Virginia Colony in North America.

William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, which is also suspect due to an earl being addressed as “Mr.” William Herbert was a patron of the arts, as was his wife, Mary Sidney Herbert.

Para6Some have argued that W.H. is a misprint for “W.S.”, that is, William Shakespeare, who is the creator or onlie begetter, the creator of the poems. In this period, dedications use the word begetter to indicate the author, rather than the dedicatee or inspiration. This dedication, signed T.T., was presumably written by the bookseller (what we would call the publisher) Thomas Thorpe. However, it is farfetched to assume he would write to the noblemen who had previously acted as patrons of Shakespeare’s work because he did not have a connection with them, as Shakespeare did when he dedicated his narrative poems to them in the 1590s. In the end, the dedication to the sonnets raises more questions than it answers.

Key Print Sources

A Companion to Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Edited by Michael Schoenfeldt. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 2007.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Edited by Paul Edmondsonand Stanley Wells. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. Simon and Schuster, 2006.

Taylor, Gary and Rory LoughnaneThe Canon and Chronology of Shakespeare’s Works. In The New Oxford Shakespeare, edited by Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourous, and Gabriel Egan. Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 417-602.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. An ambiguous dedication. Shakespeare’s Life and Times.Internet Shakespeare Editions, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/life/youth/mrwh.html. Accessed 28 Feb. 2023.

Best, Michael. The plot thickens. Shakespeare’s Life and Times.Internet Shakespeare Editions, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/life/youth/sonnets.html. Accessed 5 Mar. 2023.

McCarthy, Erin A.Sonnets, First Edition. Shakespeare Documented https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/node/557. Accessed 28 Feb. 2023.

Neary, Lynn.Did Shakespeare Want to Suppress His Sonnets. National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/2009/05/20/104317503/did-shakespeare-want-to-suppress-his-sonnets Accessed 28 Feb. 2023.

Image Sources

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’Sonnets. London: G. Eld, 1609. Title page. British Library. https://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/171318/.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’Sonnets. London: G. Eld, 1609. Composite image of the title page and dedication page. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SonnetsDedication.jpg.

Prosopography

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title	Composition and Publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Type of text	Critical
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source	By Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration	This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition	Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)	Early Modern England Encyclopedia Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	published
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University
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