A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Sheares or Shears (William)
SHEARES or SHEARS (WILLIAM), bookseller in London, (1) Great South dore of Pauls, 1631; (2) Britains Bursse and neare York House, 1635-59; (3) Bible in Bedford St., Covent Garden, 1642-62; (4) Bible in Paul's Church Yard near Little North Door, 1655; (5) Westminster Hall, 1657. [1625-62.] Took up his freedom June 9th, 1623. [Arber, iii. 685.] He appears to have had shops in various parts of London, and was the publisher of much of the best literature of the period, including Alexander Brome's Cunning Lovers, 1654; John Cleveland's Poems, 1659; Phineas Fletcher's Sicelides, 1631; Thomas May's version of Lucan's Pharsalia, 1651; Quarles' Divine Fancies, 1632. Sheares was suspected of having had a hand in printing Leicester's Commonwealth, a notorious satire on the House of Lords. [Domestic State Papers, Chas. I, vol. 484 (75).] He died September 21st, 1662. [Smyth's Obituary, p. 56.]