Thomas Creede

Those individuals, like William Jaggard of First Folio fame, who regularly functioned as both publishers and printers, were the exceptions to the general rule.

Inevitably, Creede also worked on many non-dramatic projects, some of serious merit; in 1597 he printed the fifth edition of Spenser's The Shepherd's Calendar for John Harrison the Younger.

For Thomas Woodcocke, for instance, Creede printed John Dickenson's Arisbas: Euphues Amidst His Slumbers, or Cupid's Journey to Hell in 1594.

Creede's title pages for The Pedlar's Prophecy, The True Tragedy of Richard III, and A Looking Glass, Q1 and Q2, specify that the books would be sold by the stationer William Barley.

Creede published the third edition of Ralph Robinson's English translation of Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1597) – and The True Law of Free Monarchies by King James I (1603).

While Creede's skill as a printer, compared to others of his age, is widely recognized, his connection with Shakespearean bad quartos and Apocryphal plays has led scholars and critics to question his ethics.

The married Creede was accused of seducing a 25-year-old servant woman named Suzan More, and fathering an illegitimate child that died soon after birth.