Title: Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, tragedies, and poems. Vol. I
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">First of 6 volumes in 8vo. pp. xlii, [2], 280, 424. Original deep yellowish green diagonal fine rib cloth, front cover blocked in blind and gold with bust of Shakespeare, back cover blocked in blind. Contains bookplate and withdrawal stamp of the Reference Department of the Public Library of York. The present volume contains a frontispiece portrait of William Shakespeare, an engraved reproduction of the Droeshout portrait, signed ‘Engraved by H. Cook.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">An undated remainder issue of the 1858 edition (see Bib# 4117174/Fr# 995 in this collection), with cancel titles. The binding style suggests the mid-1860s.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">The edition of 1858 is a revisal or reissue of John Payne Collier’s 1842-1844 Shakespeare edition, with readings from the Perkins folio incorporated and Collier’s acerbic comments on his rival editors Dyce and Singer. The edition was published by Whittaker as a complete six-volume set in April 1858. The ‘Life of Shakespeare’ was also somewhat updated and newly indexed and individual prefaces were occasionally enlarged, but as often as not with false evidence. The set also contains some additional commentary, and a very few altered readings, other than Perkinsian, from editorial reconsideration or conjecture since 1844. Six out of the ten illustrative ballads that Collier added to the individual play prefaces (‘The Inchanted Island’ prefacing ‘The Tempest’ (v. 1) and ‘The tragedie of Othello the Moore’ prefacing ‘Othello’ (v. 6); ‘The Lamentable Burning of the Globe Play-House’ prefacing ‘Henry VIII (v. 4);’ ‘Agincourt, or the English Bowman’s Glory’ (v.3) and ‘Of King Richard the Third’ (v. 4); ‘The Lamentable Death of King John, poysoned by a Monk at Swinstead’ (v. 2)) are partly or wholly fabrications. In volume I, Collier signaled a spurious discovery concerning John Marston, a letter which Collier erroneously assigned to his namesake, the playwright and poet John Marston (1575?-1634).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">Content:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. l. History of the English drama and stage to the time of Shakespeare. The life of William Shakespeare. The tempest. The two gentlemen of Verona. The merry wives of Windsor. Measure for measure. The comedy of errors</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. 2. Much ado about nothing. Love's labour's lost. Midsummer-night's dream. Merchant of Venice. As you like it. Taming of the shrew. All's well that ends well. Twelfth night</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. 3. The winter's tale. King John. First[-Second]part of King Henry IV. King Henry V. First part of King Henry VI</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. 4. Second[-Third] part of King Henry VI. King Richard III. King Henry VIII. Troilus and Cressida. Coriolanus</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. 5. Titus Andronicus. Romeo and Juliet. Timon of Athens. Julius Caesar. Macbeth. Hamlet. King Lear</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">v. 6. Othello. Antony and Cleopatra. Cymbeline. Pericles. Venus and Adonis. Lucrece. Sonnets. A lover's complaint. The passionate pilgrim. The phoenix and turtle. Indicial glossary.</span></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">See A. &amp; J. Freeman, John Payne Collier. Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 2004, I, pp. 692-694, 709-711; II, A89b.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_4117174" rel="ugc nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>