The plays and poems of William Shakspeare
Subtitle: corrected from the latest and best London editions, with notes
By: by Samuel Johnson, L.L.D. ; to which are added a glossary and the life of the author ; embellished with a striking likeness from the collection of His Grace the Duke of Chandos
Contributors: Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784,   editor; Field, Robert, 1769?-1819, engraver; Barton, Thomas Pennant, 1803-1869, former owner; Diamond, Maria E., former owner; Condie, Thomas, 1775?-1814,  binder; Bioren & Madan
Edition: First American edition.
Publisher: Printed and sold by Bioren & Madan
Published: 1795
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Other titles: Plays and poems of William Shakespeare
Notes: The first edition of Shakespeare's Works produced outside the British Isles (Jaggard).

Volumes 1-3 are dated 1795, volumes 4-8 are dated 1796.

All volumes with a volume title page and volume half-title; each play and the Poems of Shakspeare with a divisional title.

All plays are paginated and signed continuously. The poems are paginated and signed separately from the plays in v. 8.

Engraved frontispiece portrait lettered: Engraved by R. Field.

Preface by the American editors, the life of the author, and a glossary in v. 1.

ESTC W28892

Evans, 29496, 31180

Jaggard, W. Shakespeare bibliography, p. 507

Boston Public Library (Rare Books Department) copy 1 bound by Thomas Condie in full, red, straight-grained morocco panelled in gilt. Condie's binders' ticket is present on the front pastedown, as is the armorial bookplate of the Barton Library. The autograph of Maria E. Diamond is present at the head of all title pages.

Boston Public Library (Rare Books Department) copy 2 halfbound in brown leather and papier tourniquet over boards (as described by Wolfe in Marbled papers). The embossed stamp of the Library is present on the title pages.
Table of contents: title: v. 1. Tempest ; Two gentlemen of Verona ; Merry wives of Windsor ; Measure for measure ; Comedy of errors; title: v. 2. Much ado about nothing ; Love's labour's lost ; Midsummer-night's dream ; Merchant of Venice ; As you like it; title: v. 3. Taming of the shrew ; All's well that ends well ; Twelfth-night ; Winter's tale ; Macbeth; title: v. 4. King John ; King Richard II ; King Henry IV ; King Henry V; title: v. 5. King Henry VI ; King Richard III; title: v. 6. King Henry VIII ; Coriolanus ; Julius Caesar ; Antony and Cleopatra; title: v. 7. Timon of Athens ; Troilus and Cressida ; Titus Andronicus ; Cymbeline ; King Lear; title: v. 8. Romeo and Juliet ; Hamlet ; Othello ; Venus and Adonis ; Tarquin and Lucrece ; Sonnets ; Passionate pilgrim ; Lover's complaint.