Christopher Hunt was an Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

 bookseller and stationer.

Life

He was the son of Walter Hunt, a cordwainer

Cordwainer

A cordwainer is a shoemaker/cobbler who makes fine soft leather shoes and other luxury footwear articles. The word is derived from "cordwain", or "cordovan", the leather produced in Córdoba, Spain. The term cordwainer was used as early as 1100 in England...

 of Blandford in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

. On 12 January 1585 he apprenticed himself to Thomas Man, a London stationer for a period of eight years, beginning the previous Christmas day. He was admitted to the Stationer's Company as a freeman on 2 October 1592, and returned to Exeter and made a freeman in 1593. There he opened a stationery

Stationery

Stationery has historically meant a wide gamut of materials: paper and office supplies, writing implements, greeting cards, glue, pencil case etc.-History of stationery:...

 in the parish of St. Martin, selling books and other items such as writing supplies, and had two titles printed for him in London by Adam Islip, both of them translations by the Cornish translator and antiquary Richard Carew. He removed to London some time before May 1606 and located a shop in Paternoster Row

Paternoster Row

Paternoster Row was a London street in which clergy of the medieval St Paul's Cathedral would walk, chanting the Lord's Prayer . It was devastated by aerial bombardment in The Blitz during World War II. Prior to this destruction the area had been a centre of the London publishing trade , with...

.

His wife's name is unknown. He had at least two children, Anne, baptised 24 March 1699 at St Martin's Church

St Martin's Church, Exeter

St Martin's Church in Cathedral Close, Exeter, Devon, England was built in the 15th century. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was vested in the Trust on 1 August 1995.It is...

, and a son, Thomas, baptised 16 January 1602 in the same church, also a stationer.

Imprints

Godfray of Bvlloigne, or the Recouerie of Heirvsalem. An Heroicall Poeme, written in Italian by Seig. Torquato Tasso and Translated into English by R [ichard] C [arew], Esquire; and now the First Part, containing Five Cantos, Imprinted in both Languages.
London, Imprinted by John Windet for Christopher Hunt, of Exeter, 1594. (Quarto, 119 leaves.)

Examen de Ingenios. The Examination of Mens Wits. In which, by discouering the varietie of Natures, is shewed for what Profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein. By John Huarte. Translated out of the Spanish Tongue by M. Camillo CamillL Englished out of his Italian by R [ichard] C [arew], Esquire.
London, Printed by Adam Islip for Christopher Hunt, at Exeter, 1596. (Quarto, 333 pages and a Table.)

The Parricide Papist, or Cut-throate Catholicke. A tragicall discourse of a murther lately committed at Padstow in the Countie of Cornewall by a professed Papist, killing his owne Father, and afterwardes himselfe, in zeal of his Popish Religion. The 11 of March last past. 1606. Written by G. Closse, Preacher of the Word of God at Blacke Torrington in Devon.
Printed at London for Christopher Hunt, dwelling in Pater-noster-row, neare the Kings-head. [1607]. (Quarto, 12 leaves.)

Hunt also had a patent granted by King James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

 to print a book titled Householders practise.

Love's Labour's Won

In 1954 fragments of Hunt's daybook at Blandford Fair in Dorset were found in the binding of a book of sermons published in 1637, one dated August 1603 and the other September 1607. On the verso of the 1603 sheet a list of 16 “[inter]ludes and tragedyes” sold from 9 to 17 August 1603 was found. The list included four of Shakespeare’s plays, Merchant of Venice, The Taming of a Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost

Love's Labour's Lost

Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...

, and Love's Labour's Won

Love's Labour's Won

Love's Labour's Won is the name of a play written by William Shakespeare before 1598. The play appears to have been published by 1603, but no copies are known to have survived. One theory holds that it is a lost work, possibly a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost...

, a play that had been mentioned by Francis Meres

Francis Meres

Francis Meres was an English churchman and author.He was born at Kirton in the Holland division of Lincolnshire in 1565. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. in 1587 and an M.A. in 1591. Two years later he was incorporated an M.A. of Oxford...

 in his Palladis Tamia

Palladis Tamia

Palladis Tamia, subtitled "Wits Treasury", is a 1598 book written by the minister Francis Meres. Meres calls it "A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets", and is important in English literary history as the first critical account of the poems and early...

, (1598) but for which no other evidence had been found. The find provided evidence that the play was in fact a unique work that had been published but lost and not an early title of some other Shakespeare play.