Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount is a publisher active from 1623. We track 14 editions it published, 14 of them first editions across 14 books. How Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount
Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount were the two London stationers named on the title page of the 1623 First Folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, published about seven years after his death.
The partners. Edward Blount (baptised 1562, dead by 1632) was apprenticed in 1578 to the stationer William Ponsonby, became a freeman of the Stationers' Company in 1588 and traded at the sign of the Black Bear in St Paul's Churchyard. His earlier list included Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598) and John Florio's Italian dictionary and translation of Montaigne. Isaac Jaggard (died 1627) worked in the printing house of his father, William Jaggard, in the Barbican and took over the business in 1623. With William old and blind by then, Isaac probably did much of the practical work on the Folio.
The First Folio. Compiled by Shakespeare's fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell, the volume collects 36 plays, eighteen of them not known to have been printed before, among them The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale and Antony and Cleopatra. The title page carries Martin Droeshout's engraved portrait of Shakespeare. The colophon credits a syndicate of four: William Jaggard, Blount, John Smethwick and William Aspley.
Survival. Roughly 750 copies are thought to have been printed. Anthony West's 2003 census counted 219 extant copies, and later counts reach about 235; the Folger Shakespeare Library holds 82. Three further folio editions followed in the seventeenth century.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount first editions
What to look for
A genuine 1623 First Folio names "Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount" with the date 1623 in the title-page imprint, and its colophon states that it was printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke and W. Aspley.
How to read it
Title-page imprint. The imprint reads, in the spelling of the period, as printed by Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623. Catalogues spell the name both Iaggard and Jaggard.
Colophon. The last leaf of the text repeats the date and names the four-man syndicate, with Smethwick spelled "Smithweeke".
Traps
Supplied and facsimile leaves. Preliminary leaves, including the title leaf and the "To the Reader" leaf facing it, can turn out to be reprints, facsimiles or leaves taken from another copy, so a buyer should check every preliminary leaf and not just the title.
¶Spot the first: Title page, Droeshout portrait: lighter modelling with fewer highlights and no shading behind the head, which appears to float above the collar (earliest state of the portrait, known in about four impressions)
How do I identify an Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount first edition?
A genuine 1623 First Folio names "Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount" with the date 1623 in the title-page imprint, and its colophon states that it was printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke and W. Aspley. How to read it - Title-page imprint. The imprint reads, in the spelling of the period, as printed by Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623. Catalogues spell the name both Iaggar
How many Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount books does MyVolumes track?
We track 14 editions published by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 14 of them first editions, across 14 books.
