Beschreibung:

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM The Works of Mr. William Shakespear; in Six Volumes. Adorn'd with cuts. Revis'd and Corrected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author. By N. Rowe, Esq. London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn Gate, next Grays-Inn Lane, 1709; Together with The Works of Mr. William Shakespear. Volume the Seventh. London: Printed for E. Curll at the Dial and Bible against St. Dunstan's Church, and E. Sanger at the Post-House at the Middle-Temple Gate, 1710. This is the small-paper issue of the first octavo and the first illustrated works of Shakespeare. Together seven volumes, bound in full modern calf gilt to period style, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. 7 5/8 x 4 5/8 inches (20 x 12 cm); with 6 portrait frontispieces and 44 engraved plates (including the Shakespeare monument) attributed to Boitard as artist and Kirkall as engraver, the volumes collating as per ESTC T138294 (i.e. with general titles to each volume, and separate titles dated 1709 to each play). Worming to final leaves of volume 6 affecting a few words, other spotting and small stains, a few discreet repairs. This has Viscount Monsell's ex libris in each volume. This is the first octavo as well as the first illustrated edition of Shakespeare, with the text based on the fourth folio. The engraved Arlaud-Duchange portrait is found only in the large-paper edition of the Works (ESTC T138296), and is not called for in the regular edition of the Works. There was possibly a surreptitious edition of the same year; our copy has the textual points appropriate to the genuine issue. The sixth volume contains the six suppositious Shakespeare plays, the London Prodigal, Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, Puritan, Yorkshire Tragedy, and Locrine that are now believed not to be by Shakespeare. The seventh volume, which includes the Poems, is ESTC T138298; the title pages to Venus and Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece have separate title pages with the imprint "printed in the year 1709." Ford Shakespeare 1700-1740 pp. 10-11; Jaggard Shakespeare Bibliography p. 497. C Estate of William W. Appleton