first facsimile of the First Folio
SHAKESPEARE, William.
Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies. London. Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623.
[London, Printed by E. and J. Wright, St. John's Square, 1807].
The First Folio was published in 1623 in an edition of between 500 and 600 copies. The edition set the standard canonical list of thirty-six plays attributed to the Bard, and marked the first appearance in print of eighteen plays: The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like it, The Taming of the Shrew, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, King John, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. Troilus and Cressida 'was originally intended to be set-up following Romeo and Juliet but was withdrawn, probably because of difficulties regarding copyright, and only included in the volume when it was too late to be noted in the Catalogue or to be pages as part of the Tragedies' (Pforzheimer).
In the same year that the Bowdlers were producing a carefully expurgated Shakespeare, the publication of this 1807 facsimile of the First Folio reflected a desire to obtain Shakespeare's original text at a fraction of the contemporary price of a First Folio, which was on average £38. This is the first of five facsimiles of the First Folio that were to appear in the nineteenth century, and was for over fifty years the only one. It was produced by letterpress, with photolithography as a reliable method of producing facsimiles being unknown before Howard Staunton's 1866 facsimile of the First Folio.
The 'first reprint of the first edition in its original form' (Jaggard), with provenance for the industrialist Benjamin Gott (1762-184) of Armley House, Leeds. His factory was once the largest in the world and is now home to the Leeds Industrial Museum.
First facsimile edition; folio (39 x 24.5 cm); engraved portrait vignette title, pencil notes to front free endpaper, bookplate to front pastedown, a little toned; striking contemporary green vellum, covers with gilt roll borders of laurels and mantles, within double gilt fillets, gilt spine in 7 compartments, all edges gilt, a little rubbed with minor loss to extremities, slightly soiled, very good; [18], 303, [1], 1-100, [2], [69]-232, [2], 79-80, [26], 98, [2], 109-156, 257-993 [i.e. 393], [1]pp.
Jaggard p.510.
Stock code 120812
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