Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, (9 February 1857,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
– 29 February 1920,
Stratford-on-Avon) was an English
editor and
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
, a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature, and founder of the Shakespeare Head Press, which for its first decades was a publisher of fine editions in the tradition of the
Kelmscott Press
The Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris and Emery Walker, published fifty-three books in sixty-six volumes between 1891 and 1898. Each book was designed and ornamented by Morris and printed by hand in limited editions of around 300. Many ...
.
His father
George Bullen (d. 1894) was a librarian at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. A. H. Bullen's interest in
Elizabethan dramatists and poets started at the
City of London School
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Boys' independent day school
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Alan Bird
, chair_label = Chair of Governors
, chair = Ian Seaton
, founder = John Carpenter
, special ...
, before he went to
Worcester College, Oxford to study classics.
His publishing career began with a scholarly edition of the ''Works of
John Day'' in 1881 and continued with series of ''The English Dramatists'' (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885–88) and a four-volume set of ''A Collection of Old English Plays'' (London: Privately printed by Wyman & Sons, 1882–89),
[A. H. Bullen, ed.]
A Collection of Old English Plays (Volume I)
upenn.edu. Retrieved 4 November 2021, some of which he had discovered in manuscript and published for the first time. He was also the first person to publish some early
lyric poems. Bullen wrote more than 150 articles for the ''
Dictionary of National Biography'', lectured on Elizabethan dramatists at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
and taught at
Toynbee Hall.
In 1891 he and H. W. Lawrence went into partnership as the publishers Lawrence & Bullen. This lasted until 1900 when Bullen moved on to publish as A. H. Bullen. With
Frank Sidgwick as partner, he then formed the Shakespeare Head Press and published a collected
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
and collected
Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
from their
base in Stratford-on-Avon.
Bullen was admired by literary figures like
Swinburne and was well known in his time for his enthusiastic scholarship and for rediscovering forgotten works of literature, most notably those of
Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion (sometimes spelled Campian; 12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was an English composer, poet, and physician. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge, studied law in Gray's inn. He wrote over a hundred lute songs, masques ...
. Because he modernised as he published, his texts are not used as standard editions by scholars today.
After Bullen's death the press was continued by a partnership including
Basil Blackwell
Sir Basil Henry Blackwell (29 May 18899 April 1984) was born in Oxford, England. He was the son of Benjamin Henry Blackwell (18491924), founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwell family's publishing and books ...
, the Oxford bookseller. It continues today as an imprint of
Wiley-Blackwell
Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
, now printing on normal commercial presses.
Sources
*Richard Storer's article on Bullen in the ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' (2004)
*H. F. B. Brett-Smith's article on Bullen in the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (1927)
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bullen, Arthur Henry
Publishers (people) from London
British academics of English literature
Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford
People educated at the City of London School
1857 births
1920 deaths