Ralph Crane

Ralph Crane (fl. 1615 – 1630) was a professional scrivener or scribe in early seventeenth-century London. His close connection with some of the First Folio texts of the plays of William Shakespeare has led to his being called "Shakespeare's first editor."

Life

What little is known of Crane's life comes from his own writings. In 1621 he published a small collection of his own poems titled The Works of Mercy, Both Corporeal and Spiritual, which he dedicated to John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater. In the prefatory "Proem" to that volume, Crane indicated that he was a native Londoner, and the son of a successful member of the Merchant Taylors Company. He spent seven years as the law clerk to Sir Anthony Ashley, secretary of the Privy Council; Crane later became a scribe working mainly for attorneys. Thomas Lodge dedicated his Scylla's Metamorphosis to a Ralph Crane in 1589; this may have been the poet/scrivener. Crane turned to writing verse late in life, when he was oppressed by ill health and poverty.