Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are poems that William Shakespeare wrote on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609; however there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays "Romeo and Juliet", "Henry V" and "Love's Labour's Lost".
Thomas Thorpe
In 1609, Thorpe published the most important work of his career, Shakespeare's "Sonnets." His apparent disregard for Shakespeare's permission earned him a poor reputation, although modern author Katherine Duncan-Jones has argued that he was not such a "scoundrel" as he was portrayed, and the amiable and admirable Blount would certainly not associate with him if he were a scoundrel. It has even been suggested that Shakespeare "did" sell his manuscript to Thorpe, because of his acquaintance with Jonson as an actor in "Sejanus," who may have recommended Thorpe to him as a good publisher. The dedication, which is addressed to a mysterious Mr. W.H., may have been written either by Shakespeare himself or by Thorpe. Thorpe was probably responsible for the arrangement of the sonnets, with 1-17 being the "procreation sonnets", 18-126 being love sonnets to the Fair Youth (for the most part), and 127-154 being written on a variety of subjects, including politics, sex, and the Dark Lady. Critics have failed to agree whether or not his arrangement was the most apt, but most detect a logical coherence in the order, which is generally retained today. The possibility that the manuscript was provided to Thomas Thorpe by a needy “MR. W. H.,” the dedicatee of the volume and the poems’ possible recipient, seems seldom to have been explored.