The Complete Works of Shakspere: Revised from the Original Editions, with Historical and Analytical Introductions to each Play, also Notes Explanatory and Critical, and a Life of the Poet (Fine Bound Edition)

SHAKESPEARE, William (ed. Henry Tyrrell & J. O. Halliwell [attrib.]). The Complete Works of Shakspere: Revised from the Original Editions, with Historical and Analytical Introductions to each Play, also Notes Explanatory and Critical, and a Life of the Poet. London & New York: John Tallis/The London Printing & Publishing Company, c.1850. 4 vols.

Quarto (28 × 19.5 cm). Half burgundy Morocco and red cloth boards. Covers margined in blind and decorated in gilt. Spine with raised bands, titled and elaborately decorated in gilt to compartments. All edges marbled. Marbled endpapers. Text in double columns, printed within double black lines. Vol. I: Comedies, 576 pp; Vol. II: Tragedies, 496 pp; Vol. III: Histories, 488 pp; Vol. IV: Doubtful Plays, 484 pp. Steel-engraved frontispiece, illustrated title page, and numerous steel-engraved portrait plates in each volume, depicting the greatest actors of the age from daguerreotypes. First edition thus.

The Shakespeare edition that was famously disclaimed by its own listed editor, James Orchard Halliwell (1820–1889), one of the most distinguished Shakespeare scholars of the nineteenth century and a founder of the Shakespeare Society. Despite this, Halliwell himself wanted nothing to do with it. Halliwell described this as a "pirated cheap edition" and publicly disclaimed all responsibility for it in The Times in October 1850.

This is an undoubtedly beautiful edition with a strong aesthetic befitting the period of its production. Particularly, the illustrations are wonderful. The steel-engraved portrait plates — reproduced from daguerreotypes of the most celebrated theatrical actors of the mid-Victorian stage — constitute a remarkable visual record of how Shakespeare was performed and received in the 1840s and 1850s. The actors depicted include the leading performers of the London stage: the daguerreotype was still a novelty when these plates were made, and their precision of likeness gives them a documentary character that more idealised theatrical portraiture cannot match. Each volume carries an engraved frontispiece and illustrated title page, with additional portrait plates distributed through the text.

The edition is also notable for what it omits: following the editorial conventions of its period, Pericles and Titus Andronicus are absent from the text, reflecting the continuing nineteenth-century uncertainty about the authorship and canonical status of those plays.

Good. Some rubbing and wear at edges and extremities of covers; binding sound in all volumes. Contents have toning, foxing, and portions of staining present in all volumes, stronger to preliminaries. Contents complete and generally in good order. A good working or reference set.

Please note: This is a four-volume set and is heavy. Additional postage costs may apply. If so, we will contact you after purchase.

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Catalogue Number: HH000637