THE PLAYS & POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1790 FIRST EDMOND MALONE EDITION, LEATHER-BOUND IN 11 VOLUMES

[SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616)]. The plays and poems of William Shakspeare, in ten volumes; collated verbatim with the most authentick copies, and revised: with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added, an essay on the chronological order of his plays; an essay relative to Shakspeare and Jonson; a dissertation on the three parts of King Henry VI.; an historical account of the English stage; and notes; by Edmond Malone. London: printed by H. Baldwin, for J. Rivington and Sons, L. Davis, B. White and Son, T. Longman, B. Law, H. S. Woodfall, C. Dilly, J. Robson, J. Johnson, T. Vernor, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, T. Cadell, J. Murray, R. Baldwin, H. L. Gardner, J. Sewell, J. Nichols, J. Bew, T. Payne, jun. S. Hayes, R. Faulder, W. Lowndes, G. and T. Wilkie, Scatcherd and Whitaker, T. and J. Egerton, C. Stalker, J. Barker, J. Edwards, Ogilvie and Speare, J. Cuthell, J. Lackington, and E. Newbery, MDCCXC. [1790].

First edition thus. Ten volumes in eleven - complete. Leather-bound. Octavo (200 x 120 mm.). Pp. lxxix, 414; [4], 315; [4], 539; [2], 636; [4], 570; [4], 604; [4], 624; [4], 600; [4], 702; [4], 648; [6], 692, [34 index]. English text. Bound in stunning contemporary speckled calf. Smooth spines gilt ruled and tooled, black morocco lettering-pieces in the second and fourth compartments. Boards with gilt frames. Marbled endpapers. Initial and terminal blanks plus half-titles present. Illustrated throughout with portrait engravings, diagrams and charts, and a fold-out plate. Extensive printed footnotes. Glossarial index in final volume. Vol.1 is bound in two parts, each with separate title-page, pagination and register. Contents: v. 1, pt. 1. Prolegomena: Preface. Preface by Johnson. Advertisement by Steevens. Catalogue of the earliest translations from the Greek and Roman classicks, by Steevens. Preface by Pope. Dedication by Heminge and Condell to the folio, 1623. Preface by the same. Rowe's life of Shakspeare, augmented by Malone. Anecdotes of Shakspeare, from Oldys's mss. &c. Baptisms [etc.] of the Shakspeare family extracted from the registers of Stratford-upon-Avon, by Malone. Shakspeare's coat of arms. Shakspeare's will. Shakspeare's mortgage. Ancient and modern commendatory verses on Shakspeare. Editions of Shakspeare's plays. Editions of his Poems. Dramatick pieces on which plays were formed by Shakspeare. List of plays altered from Shakspeare. Detached pieces of criticism on Shakspeare, his editors, &c. Entries [of Shakspeare's plays and poems] in the Stationer's registers, extracted by Steevens. Essay on the order of time in which the plays were written. Shakspeare, Ford and Jonson.--v. 1, pt. 2. Historical account of the English stage. Emendations and additions. Tempest. Two gentlemen of Verona. Merry wives of Windsor. v. 2. Measure for measure. Comedy of errors. Much ado about nothing. Love's labour's lost. A midsummer night's dream.--v. 3. Merchant of Venice. As you like it. Taming of the shrew. All's well that ends well. Pericles, prince of Tyre.--v. 4. Twelfth-night. Winter's tale. Macbeth. King John.--v. 5. Richard II. Henry IV, part first and second. Henry V.--v. 6. Henry VI, part first, second, and third. A dissertation on the three parts of King Henry VI. Richard III.--v. 7. King Henry VIII. Coriolanus. Julius Cæsar. Antony and Cleopatra.--v. 8. Timon of Athens. Troilus and Cressida. Cymbeline. King Lear.--v. 9. Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. Othello.--v. 10. Venus and Adonis. Rape of Lucrece. Sonnets. Passionate pilgrim. Lover's complaint. Titus Andronicus. Romeus and Juliet. Appendix. Glossarial index. Condition: NEAR FINE. Collated complete. Bindings tight, secure and square, all hinges perfectly intact. Covers very well-preserved with minor rubbing and abrasions. Interiors largely fresh and clean. Without previous ownership markings. An exquisite set and scarce thus.

Notes: The first edition of Malone’s Shakespeare appeared in 1790 - regarded as very important and an incredibly scarce text in the original complete form. After the publication of this edition Malone died leaving much unfinished material. James Boswell the younger gathered this and, after almost a decade of preparation, published in 1821 a 21-volume landmark edition which is known as the third variorum edition, and which became a staple of the Shakespeare reprint trade. Edmond Malone (1741-1812) is regarded as the greatest eighteenth-century Shakespearean editor and commentator. He used the ten-volume edition by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens as his base text but went far beyond Johnson and Steevens in establishing an authoritative text, consulting early folios and quartos more thoroughly than any previous scholar had done. Moreover, using archives from London, Stratford and country houses, he both expanded biographical knowledge of Shakespeare and corrected errors which had been perpetuated from Rowe’s “Life of Shakespeare” onwards. He arranged the plays in their supposed order of composition, and he included the poems as a standard part of an edition.