Richard Field (publisher)

Richard Field (or Feild) (1561–1624) was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Field's family lived on Bridge Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, close to the Shakespeare's house on Henley Street. His father was a tanner. It is generally accepted that Shakespeare and Field knew each other in Stratford, since they were similar in age and their fathers were in similar businesses (tanner and glover). After Field's father Henry died in August 1592, William's father John Shakespeare was one of the local officials charged with the appraisal of the deceased man's property.

In 1579 Richard Field began an apprenticeship with the London printers George Bishop and Thomas Vautrollier. Vautrollier died in 1587. In 1588, Field collaborated with Jacqueline Vautrollier, Thomas Vautrollier's widow and a printer in her own right, on The copie of a letter sent out of England to Don Bernardin Mendoza declaring the state of England. This piece of Protestant propaganda was the first work to bear Field's name. Field went on to marry Jacqueline in 1589. He succeeded to his former master's business, "one of the best in London." Field's shop was in the Blackfriars area of London, near Ludgate. He regularly printed works for the most highly regarded publishers in London, including William Ponsonby and Edward Blount. In 1592 his brother, Jasper Field, joined Richard's business as an apprentice.

Field's Protestantism led him to publish a number of Spanish-language Protestant works for sale in Catholic Spain, under the name "Ricardo del Campo." Examples include a translation of Calvin's reformed catechism, Catecismo que significa forma de instrucción, que contiene los principios de la religión de dios, util y necessario para todo fiel Christiano : compuesto en manera de dialogue, dónde pregunta el maestro, y responde el discípulo (1596). His Spanish works included a number which claimed to be written by Cipriano de Valera, including Dos tratados. El primero es del Papa y de su autoridad colegiado de su vida y dotrina, y de lo que los doctores y concilios antiguos y la misma sagrada Escritura enseñan. El segundo es de la Missa recopilado de los doctores y concilios y de la sagrada Escritura (1599) and a Spanish New Testament (1596).

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