Robert Allot
Robert Allot | |
|---|---|
| Died | 1635 |
| Occupation(s) | Bookseller, publisher |
| Years active | 1625–1635 |
| Known for | Publishing Shakespeare's Second Folio (1632) |
Robert Allot (d. 1635) was a prominent bookseller and publisher based in London during the early Caroline era, operating from the black bear sign located in St. Paul's Churchyard. Although his career spanned roughly a decade (1625–1635), Allot was instrumental in bringing to print significant works by leading figures of the English Renaissance theatre, including William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
Background
Allot gained his status as a "freeman" of the Stationers Company on 9 November 1625. He was the younger son of Edward Allot from Crigleston, Yorkshire, near Wakefield. His brother, Edward Allot (died 1636), pursued a medical career after studying at Cambridge. Earlier misunderstandings conflating Robert Allot the publisher with his uncle—also named Robert Allot, a poet and Linacre Professor at Cambridge who edited England's Parnassus (1600)—have since been resolved.
Shakespeare
On 16 November 1630, the Stationers' Register recorded the transfer of publishing rights for sixteen Shakespearean plays from Edward Blount—one of the original publishers of Shakespeare's First Folio—to Robert Allot. These sixteen titles were part of the eighteen plays included in the First Folio that had not appeared previously as quartos. This acquisition established Allot as the leading publisher of the Shakespeare Second Folio in 1632, significantly boosting his prominence within the English book trade.
Jonson
In 1631, alongside his involvement with the Second Folio, Allot planned to issue a second compilation of Ben Jonson's works, designed to complement Jonson's 1616 folio containing plays, masques, and poems. This new volume was intended to feature Jonson’s more recent compositions; however, Jonson abandoned the project due to dissatisfaction with the printing quality provided by John Beale.
Others
Among other dramatic works, Allot published Philip Massinger's The Roman Actor (1629) and The Maid of Honour (1632), as well as Aurelian Townshend's court masque Albion's Triumph (1631). His publishing list also included authors such as Sir Thomas Overbury, George Wither, James Mabbe, and Thomas Randolph. He issued popular chivalric romances and acted as a London retail agent for Oxford University Press. Furthermore, Allot maintained commercial relations with Cambridge bookseller Troylus Atkinson, serving the academic market.
In addition to these figures, he published lesser-known writers like Elizabeth Joscelin with The Mother's Legacy to Her Unborn Child and John Earle, Bishop of Salisbury's Microcosmography.
Post mortem
After Robert Allot’s passing, his widow remarried Philip Chetwinde, another stationer who inherited rights to Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s dramatic works through this union. Chetwinde utilized Allot’s Shakespearean copyrights to produce the Third Folio in 1663/4. Meanwhile, Jonson’s play rights facilitated the publication of Jonson’s second folio (1640/1), issued by Richard Meighen.