Introducing Shakespeare: A Graphic Guide - Nick Groom, Piero 2013

The Hireling Poet

Shakespeare now briefly turned his ambitions to poetry and patronage, and wrote two erotic verses: Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). These are the only works he took any care in publishing, and they are effusively dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton.