[1] The publisher was the son of a William Aspley of Royston, Cambridgeshire; he served a nine-year apprenticeship under George Bishop that started at Christmas 1587.
Aspley's professional career was notable for its longevity: he became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Company on 4 April 1597,[2] and remained active for the next four decades.
At the start of the 17th century's third decade, when Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard were preparing to publish the First Folio, they needed to obtain the rights to eighteen Shakespearean plays already in print.
He issued an abundant supply of religious works, as was normal for his era; John Boys' An Exposition of the Last Psalm (1615) is only one example.
One curious item in Apsley's catalogue was Sebastien Michaelis's The Admirable History of Possession and Conversion of a Penitent Woman: Seduced by a Magician that Made Her to Become a Witch (1613).