Andrew Crooke and William Cooke

Andrew Crooke (c. 1605 – 20 September 1674) and William Cooke (died 1641?) were London publishers of the mid-17th-century. In partnership and individually, they issued significant texts of English Renaissance drama, most notably of the plays of James Shirley. Andrew Crooke was the son of a William Crooke, a yeoman of Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire. On 26 March 1629, Andrew Crooke won his "freedom" of the Stationers Company – that is to say, he gained full membership in the guild of London booksellers, publishers, and printers – and in time "became one of the leading publishers of his day." Perhaps his most notable solo achievements were the 1640 publication of the second edition of Ben Jonson's 1616 folio, and his editions of the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne. (Of the latter, Crooke published two unauthorized editions in 1642, and the authorized and corrected edition of 1643, plus subsequent editions in 1645, 1648, 1656, 1659, 1669, and 1672). His currently best-known publication is Thomas Hobbes' scientific and political tract Leviathan (book). William Cooke was a contemporary of Crooke; he began operating as a publisher in 1632. Cooke specialized in the publication of law books. Crooke tended more toward literature and general-interest works; he produced books like Sir Henry Blount's A Voyage to the Levant (1636), Richard Corbet's Certain Elegant Poems (1639), and John Bate's The Mysteries of Nature and Art (1635). Cooke's shop was near Furnival's Inn Gate in Holborn; Crooke kept his at the sign of the Green Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard. Each man also operated with other partners for some projects, and worked alone on others. Crooke sometimes partnered with colleague Gabriell Bedell. Cooke partnered with Matthew Walbancke for Sir Henry Spelman's De Sepultura (1641).