Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love. Venus and Adonis was entered into the Stationers' Register on 18 April 1593; the poem appeared later that year in a quarto edition, published and printed by Richard Field, a Stratford-upon-Avon man and a close contemporary of Shakespeare. Field released a second quarto in 1594, then transferred his copyright to John Harrison... , the stationer who published the first edition of The Rape of Lucrece, also in 1594. Subsequent editions of Venus and Adonis were in octavo format rather than quarto; Harrison issued the third edition probably in 1595, and the fourth in 1596 . The poem's copyright then passed to William Leake, who published two editions in 1599 alone, with perhaps four in 1602. The copyright passed to William Barrett in 1617; Barrett issued O9 that same year.
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