The Age of the Author: Print and Precocity in the English Renaissance Available to Purchase

This essay describes how commercial publishing in Renaissance England made the age of authors newly salient, especially at the important moment of the literary debut. Drawing on a prosopographic survey of Tudor and early Stuart writers, the essay sketches the age structure of debut authorship, adding concrete detail to the much-discussed association between youth and literature in this era. It also shows how ideals such as precocity and categories such as juvenilia arose in response to the new possibilities and problems opened by dated publication.