The National Shakespeare: A Facsimile of the Text of the First Folio of 1623, 3 volumes: Comedies, Histories, Tragedies (Deluxe Facsimile of First Edition)

SHAKESPEARE, William (illus. Sir Joseph Noel Paton). The National Shakespeare: A Facsimile of the Text of the First Folio of 1623. London, Edinburgh and Dublin: William Mackenzie, 18881889. 3 vols.

Folio. Full publisher’s crushed dark green morocco, profusely decorated in gilt and blind to covers. Spines lettered in gilt with five raised bands and gilt-decorated compartments. Upper edges gilt, others uncut. Marbled endpapers. Vol. I: Comedies; Vol. II: Histories; Vol. III: Tragedies. Approximately 20 engraved plates by Sir Joseph Noel Paton, printed on India-proof paper and mounted, throughout. Title pages printed in red and black. Text printed in antique type on handmade paper with rough edges specially manufactured for the work. Special edition, issued in full morocco with India-proof impressions of the plates; priced at five guineas per volume at publication.

The First Folio of 1623 Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, assembled by Shakespeare’s colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell some seven years after his death is one of the most consequential books ever published. Without it, eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays, including The Tempest, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and Measure for Measure, would be lost to us entirely; for a further dozen, it provides the only authoritative text. Heminges and Condell dismissed the quarto editions that had circulated during Shakespeare’s lifetime as “stol’n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors,” and offered the Folio as the author’s works “now offer’d to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes.” Approximately 750 copies of the original were printed; around 235 survive, held by libraries and a tiny number of private collections, and they change hands at auction for sums that place them among the most valuable printed books in existence.

The William Mackenzie facsimile of 188889 was one of the most ambitious attempts of the Victorian period to make the text of the First Folio available to a serious reading public. Printed in a specially cut antique type on handmade paper with rough edges manufactured to replicate the character of the original, it reproduces the orthography and layout of the 1623 text with scholarly fidelity. The illustrations by Sir Joseph Noel Paton Queen’s Limner for Scotland, Pre-Raphaelite sympathiser, and one of the most distinguished figure painters of his generation were engraved and printed on India-proof paper for mounting in the special morocco edition, and they bring to the plays exactly the quality of imaginative engagement that the text demands. The special issue, bound in full morocco at five guineas per volume, was produced for collectors who wanted both the textual authority of the facsimile and a physical object worthy of the work it contained.

Very good. Well preserved throughout. Some darkening to spines of all three volumes. Minor rubbing and wear to edges and creases. Hinges of all volumes are marvellously secure and remain strong. Contents generally very good with some spotting and toning here and there. Water markings to the top corner of some pages and plates, though not effecting contents. Strong toning is present to the verso of each plate-backing page throughout all three volumes; this is consistent with the India-proof mounting process and is uniform across all such pages, indicating a production characteristic of the edition rather than damage.

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Catalogue Number: HH000464