Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberts, James (fl.1564-1606)
ROBERTS, JAMES (fl. 1564–1606), printer, was made free of the Company of Stationers on 27 June 1564, and on 24 June 1567 began to take apprentices. The first entry to him is for ‘An almanacke and pronostication of Master Roberte Moore, 1570’ (Arber, Transcript of the Registers, i. 240, 326, 402). He was one of several who petitioned the company for pardon on 27 Jan. 1577–8, after having presented certain complaints (ib. ii. 880). With R. Watkins he had a patent for almanacs and prognostications for twenty-one years from 12 May 1588 (ib. ii. 817–18). This patent lasted to the end of the reign of Elizabeth. James I granted for ever the right to the Stationers' Company from 29 Oct. 1603 (ib. iii. 15). Roberts took over John Charlewood's books on 31 May 1594 (ib. ii. 651–2), including the right of printing playbills, which William Jaggard unsuccessfully applied for. About 1595 Roberts probably married Charlewood's widow, Alice. He is also said to have married a daughter of Heyes the stationer. The court of assistants ordered, on 1 Sept. 1595, ‘that James Roberts shall clerely from hensforth surcease to deale with the printinge of the Brief Catechisme’ lately printed by him, and that he should deliver up all sheets of the book (ib. ii. 824). On 25 June 1596 he was admitted into the livery (ib. ii. 872).
‘A booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce, or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce,’ was entered to him on 22 July 1598 (ib. iii. 122), and he printed the first edition of the play in 1600. He also issued the first editions of ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ and ‘Titus Andronicus’ in the same year. He paid a fine on 26 March 1602 for not serving the rentership (ib. ii. 833). On 26 July 1602 he had entered to him ‘The Revenge of Hamlett, Prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servantes’ (ib. iii. 212). The first edition was printed by N. Ling in 1603; the second and third impressions were printed by Roberts for Ling in 1604 and 1605. One other Shakespearean entry to him is for ‘Troilus and Cressida, as yt is acted by my lord chamberlen's Men,’ 7 Feb. 1603 (ib. iii. 226), of which the first printed edition came from the press of G. Eld in 1609. The last entry is on 10 July 1606 (ib. iii. 326). ‘The players billes’ and some books were transferred to William Jaggard on 29 Oct. 1615 (ib. iii. 575). A long list of books belonging to Roberts towards the end of his life is reprinted in Ames's ‘Typographical Antiquities’ (ed. Herbert, ii. 1031–1032). Roberts first lived in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, at the sign of the Sun; he afterwards had a house in the Barbican. He printed down to 1606. Mr. F. G. Fleay (Shakespeare Manual, 1878, p. 145) says that ‘he seems to have been given to piracy and invasion of copyright.’
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 1785, ii. 1031–2; Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, vol. ii., Catalogue of Books in the British Museum printed to 1640, 1884, 3 vols.; Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual ( H. G. Bohn), 1864, 6 vols., Collier's History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1831, iii. 382–3; Malone's Historical Account of English Stage (Variorum Shakespeare), iii. 154.]