The Two Gentlemen of Zurich: Marcus Stapfer and Johann Rudolph Hess, Swiss Travellers to England (1611–13), and Their Shakespeare Quartos

Abstract

This article recovers parts of the biographically and bibliographically intertwined history of two early modern Zurich citizens, their joint travels and the Shakespeare quartos each of them owned. The first part focuses on a previously forgotten copy of the third quarto edition of Pericles (1611), now at the Zurich Central Library, and its original owner recorded on the title page, Marcus Stapfer (1591–1619). The second part of the article adds to the investigation Johann Rudolf Hess (1588–1655), the owner of the other early Shakespeare quartos at the Zurich Central Library. Stapfer and Hess jointly undertook extended educational travels from 1610 to 1614, including to London, where they are likely to have acquired their Shakespeare quartos in the summer of 1613. The article traces what is known about the quartos’ subsequent ownership history, before concluding that Shakespeare thus appears to have had a continuous bibliographic presence in Switzerland since the early seventeenth century.