Edward Allde (Alde, Alldee,[1] or Alday;[2] born c. 1560,[1] died 1627[1]) was an English printer in London during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama, including some of the early editions of plays by William Shakespeare.
Edward Allde was part of a family of professional printers: his father John, his mother Margaret, his widow Elizabeth, and two of her children all worked in the trade.
In 1593, Edward moved into his own establishment, at the sign of the Gilded Cup in Fore Street, Cripplegate, near the Barbican; Margaret Allde continued the Long Shop operation on her own, at least until 1601.
[7] Toward the end of his career, in the early 1620s, Allde was involved in the syndicate that produced the first English newspapers, along with Nathaniel Butter, Thomas Archer, Nicholas Bourne, William Sheffard and Bartholomew Downes.
"[8] It was not unusual, in this period, for stationers to run into difficulties with the authorities, both those of their guild and the higher civil administration; most were fined for infractions large and small, and some, like Butter, Archer, Nicholas Okes, and William Stansby, were imprisoned.
Allde maintained a long-term professional relationship with bookseller White, and printed a number of dramatic and non-dramatic works for him over the course of their careers.
Allde printed topical works like Henry Petowe's Elizabetha Quasi Vivens: Eliza's Funeral (1603), an item in the mourning literature for Queen Elizabeth I.
For John Tappe, he printed an early attempt at juvenile literature, Nicholas Breton's The Passionate Shepherd...With many excellent conceited Poems and pleasant Sonnets, fit for young heads to pass away idle hours (1604).
Allde's edition of Richard Rich's News from Virginia: The Lost Flock Triumphant (1610) reads "to be sold by John Wright" on its title page.