William Jaggard was the son of a John Jaggard, a citizen of London and a barber-surgeon by profession; the elder Jaggard was already deceased when his son began an eight-year apprenticeship with printer Henry Denham at Michaelmas 1584.
12 Facts About William Jaggard
1.
2.
In time, William Jaggard developed one of the largest print shops of his generation; he was eventually assisted by his son Isaac, who succeeded to his father's business in 1623.
3.
Printers who published often needed a retail outlet for their wares; William Jaggard's books were frequently sold by Matthew Lownes at his shop in St Paul's Churchyard, the centre of the book trade in London.
4.
William Jaggard's brother John Jaggard was a printer and publisher, and held the rights to print the Essays of Sir Francis Bacon.
5.
William Jaggard printed books of varying types, including works by Richard Barnfield and John Davies of Hereford.
6.
In 1608 William Jaggard bought out the business of the elderly James Roberts, a printer with significant connections to the Shakespeare canon.
7.
William Jaggard sought the same monopoly; he did not obtain it until 1615.
8.
William Jaggard had a twenty-year involvement with works of the Shakespeare canon, starting with his publication of the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim under Shakespeare's name in 1599.
9.
William Jaggard printed an expanded edition of the same work in 1612.
10.
William Jaggard suffered deteriorating health in the final decade of his life; by the time of the First Folio he was old, infirm and blind.
11.
The bibliophilic later William Jaggard was responsible for the massive Shakespeare Bibliography.
12.
Captain William Jaggard described how after Lady Umfreville, "the line became extinct".