2. Dering as Book Collector

In adapting Shakespeare’s history plays, Dering brought together two passions of his life as a young man centring on London’s two great markets of cultural exchange, the theatre and the bookshop. His impressive book collection centred on large folio volumes reflecting his aspirations as a scholar. Plays published in cheaper edition in quarto format, despite their utility as sources of instruction and entertainment, were of limited intellectual prestige. Dering nevertheless bought them voraciously. Small editions of plays could easily be transported from London to Kent. Their journey enabled Dering to relocate the practice of performance itself, from the professional theatres of the metropolis to his own country seat.