The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) is an anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 of 20 poems that were attributed to "W. Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

" on the title page, only five of which are accepted by present-day scholars as authentically Shakespearean.

Editions

The Passionate Pilgrim was published by William Jaggard

William Jaggard

William Jaggard was an Elizabethan and Jacobean printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of William Shakespeare, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays...

, later the publisher of Shakespeare's First Folio

First Folio

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....

. The first edition survives only in a single fragmentary copy; its date cannot be fixed with certainty since its title page is missing, though many scholars judge it likely to be from 1599, the year the second edition appeared with the attribution to Shakespeare. The title page of this second edition states that the book is to be sold by stationer

Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers

The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter in 1557...

 William Leake; Leake had obtained the rights to Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis

Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem)

Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.-Publication:Venus and Adonis was...

in 1596 and published five octavo

Book size

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...

 editions of that poem (the third edition through the eighth) in the 1599–1602 period.

Jaggard issued an expanded edition of The Passionate Pilgrim in 1612, containing an additional nine poems – though all nine were by Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...

, from his Troia Britannica, which Jaggard had published in 1609. Heywood protested the piracy in his Apology for Actors (1612), writing that Shakespeare was "much offended" with Jaggard for making "so bold with his name." Jaggard withdrew the attribution to Shakespeare from unsold copies of the 1612 edition.

All the early editions of The Passionate Pilgrim are in octavo format. They were carelessly printed with many errors, in contrast to the carefully printed early editions of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis , Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work"...

.

The poems in The Passionate Pilgrim were reprinted in John Benson

John Benson (publisher)

John Benson was a London publisher of the middle seventeenth century, best remembered for a historically important publication of the Sonnets and miscellaneous poems of William Shakespeare in 1640....

's 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems, along with the Sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...

, A Lover's Complaint

A Lover's Complaint

A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. It is given the title 'A Lover's Complaint' in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609...

, The Phoenix and the Turtle

The Phoenix and the Turtle

The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great published metaphysical poem". The title "The...

, and other pieces. Thereafter the anthology was included in collections of Shakespeare's poems, in Bernard Lintott's 1709 edition and subsequent editions.

The poems

Number	Author	Title	Information
1	William Shakespeare William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...	Sonnet 138 Sonnet 138 Sonnet 138 is one of the most famous of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Making use of frequent puns , it shows an understanding of the nature of truth and flattery in romantic relationships...	First publication
2	William Shakespeare	Sonnet 144 Sonnet 144 - Introduction :Sonnet 144 was published in the Passionate Pilgrim. Shortly before this, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's Sonnets in "his handbook of Elizabethan poetry, Palladis Tamia, or Wit's Treasurie, published in 1598," which was frequently talked about in the literary centers of...	First publication
3	William Shakespeare	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:... (extract)	Spoken by Nathaniel in Act 4, Scene II. The inclusion of this poem (and 5 and 16) says much about Jaggard's taste: in the play, they are intended to be examples of bad poetry.
4	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	On the theme of Venus and Adonis Venus and Adonis Venus and Adonis, a classical myth, was a common subject for art during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Some works which have been titled Venus and Adonis are:-Literary works:... , as is Shakespeare's narrative poem Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem) Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.-Publication:Venus and Adonis was... .
5	William Shakespeare	Love's Labour's Lost (extract)	Spoken by Nathaniel in Act 4, Scene II.
6	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	On the theme of Venus and Adonis, as is Shakespeare's narrative poem.
7	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	In the same six-line stanza format as Venus and Adonis.
8	Richard Barnfield Richard Barnfield Richard Barnfield , English poet, was born at Norbury, Staffordshire, and brought up in Newport, Shropshire.He was baptized on 13 June 1574, the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman. His obscure though close relationship with Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars...	[untitled]	First published in Poems in Divers Humors (1598).
9	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	On the theme of Venus and Adonis, as is Shakespeare's narrative poem.
10	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	In the same six-line stanza format as Venus and Adonis.
11	Bartholomew Griffin Bartholomew Griffin Bartholomew Griffin was an English poet. He is known for his Fidessa sequence of sonnets, published in 1596.-Works:Griffin wrote a series of 62 sonnets entitled Fidessa, more chaste than kinde, London, 1596...	[untitled]	Printed in Fidessa (1596). On the theme of Venus and Adonis, as is Shakespeare's narrative poem.
12	Thomas Deloney Thomas Deloney Thomas Deloney was an English novelist and balladist.He appears to have worked as a silk-weaver in Norwich, but was in London by 1586, and in the course of the next ten years is known to have written about fifty ballads, some of which got him into trouble, and caused him to keep a low profile for...  (?)	[untitled]	Was reprinted with additional stanzas in 1631 in Thomas Deloney's Garden of Goodwill. Deloney died in 1600; he might be the author of 12, though collections of his verse issued after his death contain poems by other authors. Critic Hallett Smith has identified poem 12 as the one most often favoured by readers as possibly Shakespearean – "but there is nothing to support the attribution."
13	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	In the same six-line stanza format as Venus and Adonis.
14	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	In the same six-line stanza format as Venus and Adonis. Originally published as two poems; some scholars, therefore, consider them as 14 and 15, adding 1 to all subsequent poem numbers.
15	William Shakespeare?	[untitled]	In the same six-line stanza format as Venus and Adonis.
16	William Shakespeare	Love's Labour's Lost	Read by Dumain in Act 4, Scene III.
17	"Ignoto" (Richard Barnfield?)	[untitled]	Printed in an anthology titled England's Helicon in 1600; it is there assigned to "Ignoto" (Latin Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...  for "unknown"). The same collection gives Barnfield's number 20 to "Ignoto" as well, leading to the supposition that 17 might also be Barnfield's. Number 17 had been published previously, with a musical setting, in the Madrigals of Thomas Weelkes (1597).
18	[unknown]	[untitled]	F. E. Halliday F. E. Halliday Frank Ernest Halliday was a twentieth-century English academic and author. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, though he was best known for his books on William Shakespeare....  an others have found a resemblance between number 18 and Canto Canto The canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, meaning "song" or singing. Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Lord Byron's Don Juan, Valmiki's Ramayana , Dante's The Divine Comedy , and Ezra Pound's The...  44 of Willobie His Avisa (1594) by Henry Willobie Henry Willobie Henry Willobie is the supposed author of a 1594 poem called Willobie his Avisa , whose main claim to fame is a possible connection with William Shakespeare's personal life.... , a poem in which Willobie listens to advice from his friend "W.S.". The content of the advice and the stanza format are identical to Willobie's lines, supposed to be W.S.'s words. In addition, poem 18 is in the same six-line stanza format as Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. A textually variant version of the poem exists in a manuscript collection of verse made c.1595 for Anne Cornwallis, daughter of Sir William Cornwallis. Though most of the poems in the book are attributed, this one is not.
19	Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...  & Sir Walter Raleigh	The Passionate Shepherd to His Love The Passionate Shepherd to His Love "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is a poem written by the English poet Christopher Marlowe and published in 1599 . In addition to being one of the most well-known love poems in the English language, it is considered one of the earliest examples of the pastoral style of British poetry in the... & The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" was written by Sir Walter Raleigh in response to Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"...	An inferior text of Marlowe's poem followed by the first stanza of Sir Walter Raleigh's "Reply."
20	Richard Barnfield	[untitled]	First published in Poems in Divers Humors (1598).

In the nineteenth century, the English composer Sir Henry Rowley Bishop produced musical settings for number 7 and number 20.

External links

• The Passionate Pilgrim at Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
  
  (omits poems identifiably by others)
• The Passionate Pilgrim(1599) Full text.