Life
The son of an innkeeper in Barnet, Middlesex, Thorpe worked as an apprentice to Richard Watkins for nine years in a small shop. In 1594 Thorpe obtained his publishing rights, but was still without his printing rights. His first book published was The First Book of Lucan, Marlowe's translation of the Pharsalia, the copyright of which he received from Edward Blount, who would come to be a close friend of Thorpe's. He then returned the favor by dedicating the volume to Blount, which was quite unorthodox for the time: publications were generally dedicated to noblemen, local celebrities, aristocracy, royalty, and other men of distinction.
In 1605 Thorpe's publishing career took off, as he published George Chapman's All Fools and Ben Jonson's Sejanus His Fall, the latter of which was also provided by Blount. It has even been speculated that Jonson himself may have even been involved in the printing, with critic Jonas Barish noting "The exactness of the marginal annotations, the closeness with which the typography conveyed Jonson's metrical intentions, and the corrections made in proof all suggest that Jonson oversaw the printing himself."
Thorpe was a mysterious anomaly among the stationers of his generation: there is no evidence that he ever maintained either a print shop or a bookshop — and without such a facility it is hard to comprehend how he stayed in business. Yet he managed: he commissioned printers to do his printing and arranged for booksellers to sell his books. For one example, his 1609 edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets (see below) was printed by George Eld, and sold by William Aspley and William Wright. Thorpe had a cryptic relationship with Aspley; together the two men entered plays into the Stationers' Register — The Malcontent on 5 July 1604, and Eastward Ho on 4 September 1605 — yet when the plays were published soon after, they were issued by Aspley alone. Thorpe remained in business until at least 1624, when he and Blount transferred the copyright of Marlowe's Hero and Leander to fellow stationer Simon Vicars.
In 1635 Thorpe retired to a poorhouse in Ewelme and died there shortly after, in his 60s.
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