Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thomas Thorpe was an English publisher active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, best known for publishing Shakespeare's sonnets in 1609. He also published works by Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.
Whether Thorpe had Shakespeare's consent has never been resolved. Modern scholars Wells and Taylor concluded that "Thorpe was a reputable publisher, and there is nothing intrinsically irregular about his publication." Katherine Duncan-Jones raised the possibility that Shakespeare himself sold the manuscript to Thorpe.
Mr. W. H. is the unidentified figure to whom Thorpe's 1609 edition of the sonnets is dedicated. Whether Thorpe or Shakespeare wrote the dedication has never been established, and W. H.'s identity remains one of English literature's unsolved questions.
Thorpe commissioned printers to produce his books and arranged for booksellers to sell them. For his 1609 edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, George Eld handled the printing while William Aspley and William Wright handled sales. Thorpe held the rights to the entire enterprise without doing any of the physical work himself.
Thomas Thorpe died in approximately 1625, the year he stopped publishing. Administration of his estate was granted to his wife Dorcas Thorpe of St. Olave Southwark on the 30th of July that year, and his pension from the Stationers' Company also ceased in 1625.
Thorpe's 1609 edition divides the 154 sonnets into three groups. Sonnets 1-17 are the "procreation sonnets," 18-126 are primarily love poems addressed to the Fair Youth, and 127-154 cover subjects including politics, sex, and the Dark Lady. This arrangement, probably chosen by Thorpe himself, is still generally retained in modern editions.