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SHAKESPEARE, William.
Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.
Published according to the true Original Copies. Unto which is added, Seven Plays, Never before Printed in Folio …
Publisher: for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley, 1685
Stock code: 65578
Price: £140,000 Currency Conversion
Fourth folio, and the last of the 17th-century editions of Shakespeare's works, edited by John Heminge (d. 1630) and Henry Condell (d. 1627), the seven plays added by Philip Chetwin (d. 1680), publisher of the Third Folio. A reprint of the ill-fated Third Folio, this edition was issued by Henry Herringman in conjunction with other booksellers, and has three settings of the title-page. Of the seven additional plays, also included in the Third Folio, only Pericles is today recognised as the work of Shakespeare. In common with the Third, the Fourth Folio dropped the final "e" from Shakespeare's name, a spelling that persisted until the beginning of the 19th century. The printer of the Comedies has been identified from the ornaments as Robert Roberts. Although this is the only edition in which each play does not start on a fresh page, it is in a larger fount and more liberally spaced than the three earlier editions. (The two pages of L1 are set in smaller type, presumably after the discovery that some text had been omitted.) The Fourth Folio remained the favoured edition among collectors until the mid-18th century, when Samuel Johnson and Edward Capell argued for the primacy of the First Folio text.
Folio (356 × 230 mm). Nineteenth-century burgundy crushed morocco by Maltby of Oxford, spine richly gilt in compartments, sides ruled in gilt and with gilt cornerpieces, gilt decorative roll to turn-ins, marbled endpapers (spine sunned, sides with a few superficial scuffs). Engraved portrait by Martin Droeshout above the verses To the Reader on verso of the first leaf, title with fleur-de-lis device (McKerrow 263), double column text within typographical rules, woodcut initials. First leaf (portrait and To the Reader verses) trimmed down around the engraved and printed areas and skilfully mounted, with partial loss of first letter of the engraver's name only; misprinted headline on 1B4 recto (The Tempest) corrected in early manuscript; small hole in 1C5 affecting 4 letters on recto only but not the sense; a few minor repairs to closed tears without loss; occasional minor spots, stains or spill-burns; some pencilled marginal marks; these flaws generally minor only, a very good copy.
