Andrew Pennycuicke

Who is Andrew Pennycuicke?

Andrew Pennycuicke was a mid-seventeenth-century actor and publisher; he was responsible for publishing a number of plays of English Renaissance drama.

What little is known of Pennycuicke's acting career comes from his own publications. In his edition of Robert Davenport's King John and Matilda, he states that he was the last actor to play the heroine's part in that play, prior to the closing of the theatres in 1642 at the start of the English Civil War. In his edition of Philip Massinger's The City Madam, he states that he acted in that play as well. So Pennycuicke must have been an actor c. 1638–42, up to the closing of the theatres; he was apparently a boy player who took women's roles, and a hired man rather than a sharer in any company.

With the closure of the theatres, many actors had to find other means of earning a living. Pennycuicke made the switch from actor to stationer, selling and publishing books. Pennycuicke's earliest known product was Robert Chamberlain's Nocturnal Lucubrations. Given his prior career, it is not surprising that Pennycuicke concentrated on publishing plays, including: