English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations

English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 88. SHAKESPEARE | Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, 1632, the Second Folio.

Property from the Library at Spetchley Park

SHAKESPEARE | Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, 1632, the Second Folio

Lot Closed

December 10, 01:27 PM GMT

Estimate

70,000 - 100,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Library at Spetchley Park


SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM

Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies. The Second Impression. Tho[mas]. Cotes for Allot, 1632


folio (327 x 215mm.), COLLATION (of complete copy): πA6 *4 , A-2B6 2C2, a-y6, 2a-3c6 3d4, THE SECOND COLLECTED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS, title-page in Greg’s regular imprint (“…to be sold at his shop at the signe | of the Blacke Beare | in Pauls Church-yard. 1632”), letterpress title with engraved portrait by Droeshout, woodcut head-pieces and initials, text in double column, 66 lines, roman and italic type, headlines and catchword, nineteenth-century diced russia gilt, marbled edges, lacking leaf G5 (from Measure for Measure), "To the Reader" leaf down (preserving text) and mounted (?possibly supplied from another copy), tears to inner margins of πA2 (title-page) and πA3 repaired with slight loss (not affecting text), preliminaries slightly stained, tiny tear to lower margin of D3, repair to outer edge of leaf H3 with loss of a few words, short tears to lower edge of H5, slight tear to upper edge of m3 (affecting few letters of headline) slight tears to lower edges of b4 and g3, a few other minor tears, some further slight occasional spotting or staining (particularly in final gatherings), rebacked, slight wear to extremities of binding


THE SECOND FOLIO EDITION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, ALSO CONTAINING THE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT OF JOHN MILTON (an epitaph in 16 verses printed on recto of πA5).


The second folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, which in principle was a page-for-page reprint of the First Folio of 1623, was printed in 1632 by Thomas Cotes, who had taken over the Jaggard shop following Isaac’s death in 1627. Like the First Folio it was printed for a syndicate of publishers, which again included John Smethwick and William Aspley. Although many obvious corrections were made, the printing introduced hundreds of minor changes to the text. This copy lacks leaf G5 (pp.81-82), part of Act V of Measure for Measure.

Loosely inserted is a printed flyer for performances of the burlesque "Macbeth Travestie" and the farce "Poor Pillicoddy", starring members of the Fielding and Berkeley families, to take place at the Theatre Royal at Spetchley Park on 15th January 1862. 


LITERATURE:

STC 22274; Greg III, pp.1113-1116; Bartlett 120; Pforzheimer 906


PROVENANCE:

Thomas Berkeley (b.1681), eighteenth century signature (“Tho. Berkeley”) on recto of title page; [by descent to:] Robert Berkeley Esq. of Spetchley Park (1794-1874), nineteenth-century armorial bookplate


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