Lot 156
Shakespeare, William
The Works in Eight Volumes
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
London: printed for J. Tonson, and the rest of the proprietors, 1635 [i.e. 1734-5], 8 volumes, 12mo (16.4 x 9.5cm), contemporary mottled calf gilt, engraved frontispiece to each individual play (except for ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in volume 1, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in volume 2, with duplicate of frontispiece for ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ inserted instead, ‘The Life and Death of King Henry the Eighth’ and ‘Titus Andronicus’ in volume 5, ‘Hamlet’ in volume 6, ‘Pericles, Prince of Tyre’ and ‘The Tragedy of Locrine’ in volume 8); ‘All’s Well that Ends Well' misbound at end of volume 6 and also lacking frontispiece (the work intended to be bound in volume 2, but there replaced by a 1735 printing of Nathaniel Lee's ‘Constantine the Great’ [ESTC T31629]), volume 4 with ‘The First Part of Henry VI’ misbound after parts 2 and 3, bindings and spines worn but solid, occasional spotting, staining and worming [ESTC T54702; Murphy, Shakespeare in Print, 208] (8)
Provenance
Ownership inscription of 'Eliz. Butler Wilson 1771' on front free endpapers.
Footnote
These eight-volume sets, dated 1734-5 on the title-pages of the constituent plays, but erroneously dated 1635 on the general title-page of each volume, are not an independent edition, but bound-up sets of individual plays which were originally published singly, as evidence by the stab-holes visible in the gutter, and the evident differences in paper stock between the plays. ‘[The] Folger Shakespeare catalogue notes that ‘in some instances, individual plays, were issued in two or more editions, and therefore, ‘no two sets will be the same, individual plays differing as to edition’ (Murphy). The 1734 Tonson edition of Measure for Measure, found in volume one of this set, is the ‘first separate unaltered issue’ of the work (Jaggard, p. 391).
The 1730s were a watershed in the history of the book in England. The expiry of the Tonson cartel's monopoly on Shakespeare in 1731, in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1710, set off a fierce price-war with rival London printer Robert Walker and led to the rapid increase in affordability and therefore dissemination of Shakespeare's works. Jacob Tonson the elder (1655-1736) had published the important Rowe edition of Shakespeare in 1709. His nephew Jacob Tonson the younger (1682-1735), who took over the business around 1718, then sought to capitalise on the family monopoly with the Pope edition of 1723-5. As Tonson the younger died in November 1735, this is likely to be one of his.