PONSONBY (WILLIAM), bookseller in London, 1571-1603; The Bishop's Head, St. Paul's Churchyard. William Ponsonby may be described as the most important publisher of the Elizabethan period. He was apprenticed to William Norton { NORTON, William (1527 - 1593) ‹ LBT 08157 › } of the King's Head in St. Paul's Churchyard, for the somewhat unusual period of ten years from Christmas, 1560, and took up his freedom in the Company of Stationers on January 11th, 1570/1 [Arber, i. 148, 446]. His first book entry, John Alday's Praise and Dispraise of Women, was made on June 17th, 1577, although this book was not published until 1579 [Arber, ii. 313, 354]. On the 24th of the following June he took as an apprentice Edward Blount { BLOUNT, Edward (1564 - ) ‹ LBT 08253 › }, who became equally famous as a publisher. Ponsonby's business for the first few years was confined to a few political and religious tracts; but in 1582 he published the first part of Robert Greene's Mamillia and in 1584 the same author's Gwydonius. On August 23rd, 1588, Ponsonby secured a licence for the publication of Sidney's Arcadia, the first edition of which appeared in 1590. For the second edition, which appeared in 1593, Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, by arrangement with Ponsonby revised the whole; and to the third she added other pieces of Sidney's. This edition, a small folio, was on the London market before the end of the year 1598 and sold for nine shillings. In the following year several London booksellers, including John Harrison the younger { HARRISON, John ( - 1617) ‹ LBT 07622 › }, Paul Lynley { LYNLEY, Paul ( - 1600) ‹ LBT 08255 › }, Richard Banckworth { BANKWORTH, Richard ( - 1613) ‹ LBT 06865 › } and John Flaskett { FLASKET, John ‹ LBT 07438 › } entered into an arrangement with Robert Waldegrave { WALGRAVE, Robert ( - 1604) ‹ LBT 07564 › } the printer in Edinburgh, to print an edition of the work, which was sold throughout the country at six shillings a copy. Ponsonby at once took proceedings against them in the Star Chamber, all the copies were seized, and the authors of the piracy were compelled to reimburse Ponsonby for his loss [Library, March, 1900, pp. 195 et seq.]. Another author whose works were first published by Ponsonby was Edmund Spenser. No less than ten volumes of Spenser's work were issued by him. The first three books of the Faerie Queene appeared in 1590, a fitting companion to Sidney's Arcadia. In the next year Ponsonby gathered into a volume various unpublished pieces by Spenser and published them on his own responsibility under the title of Complaints, and he subsequently issued The Tears of the Muses and Daphnaida, both in 1591, Amoretti and Colin Clout's come home again in 1595, and in 1596 the fourth, fifth and sixth books of the Faerie Queene, as well as a collected edition of the six hooks and two other volumes, respectively called Fowre Hymns and Prothalamion. Ponsonhy was elected Junior Warden of the Company for the year ending June 28th, 1599 [Arber, iii. 146]. His name appears for the last time in connection with a book on July 5th, 1602, when he and several other important stationers entered an edition of North's Plutarch, [Arber, iii. 211]. Ponsonby married Joane { COLDOCK, Joan (mar. PONSONBY) ‹ LBT 03220 › }, the daughter of Francis Coldock { COLDOCK, Francis ( - 1603) ‹ LBT 08163 › }, and died, probably of the plague, at the end of 1603, without issue [Plomer, Wills, pp. 36, 39].
