Reading a Lost Book: Ben Jonson’s Epigrammes (c.1612) and Disposable Authorship

Abstract

The discovery of the title “Ben Jhonsons Epigrammes” in an administrative record dated 1614 from the Bodleian Library prompts this new assessment of Jonson’s epideictic poems and their publication history. While it is often believed that Jonson’s epigrams appeared for the first time in print in his folio of Workes (1616), this essay presents a growing body of evidence proving that a small, flimsy octavo edition entitled Epigrammes was circulating as early as 1612. By reading the many traces of this title in early-seventeenth-century records, this essay charts how the sixpenny pamphlet became a “lost book,” both removed from the shelves of the Bodleian Library and erased from scholarly narratives that were invested in Jonson as a “possessive” author. Reading this lost book of Epigrammes offers scholars a different version of Jonson’s print identity, what I call his “disposable” authorship, an affinity for gaining fame by embracing publication in cheap, handy, and materially vulnerable books. [T.L.]