William Ponsonby (publisher)

Ponsonby published all of Spenser's future works, including the complete edition of The Faerie Queene in 1596; he issued the entire Spenserian canon except for the poet's earliest volume, The Shepherd's Calendar (1579).

The works of Sidney's sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, including Antony (1592, 1595), her translation of Garnier's tragedy, were also published by Ponsonby.

Ponsonby nourished a reputation as an elite publisher, and so avoided what the Elizabethans considered lower-prestige product – like stage plays.

Ponsonby printed none of the plays of English Renaissance drama that are such a strong focus of modern interest in his era, and he generally avoided the non-dramatic works of dramatists as well – though his 1583 edition of Robert Greene's Mamilia, Part II, and his 1594 publication of George Chapman's The Shadow of Night, are exceptions to this general trend.

In 1595 Ponsonby tried to register ownership of Lewes Lewkenor's The Estate of English fugitives under the King of Spain and his ministers but the edition was printed, possibly piratically, by John Drawater, assistant to Thomas Blagrave Master of the Revels (Ponsonby's apprentice Edward Blount largely followed his master's example of avoiding plays during his own independent career – though Blount made a few exceptions, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623.)