Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sales catalogue: Sotheby's. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![39 40 4] a plate at the end. In December, 1902, the separate Dublin editions of Julius Cesar, Othello, and Hamlet, 1721, sold by auction for £355. These scarce volumes contain the first editions published outside England of the great majority of Shakespeare’s plays. SHAKESPEARE. A collection of Old Plays, including 20 of Shakes- peare’s principal Comedies and Tragedies (19 with costume plates of Kemble, Macklin, Ryder, Miss Farren, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, &c.) ; also Milton’s Comus, and plays by Addison, Dryden, Farquhar, Fielding, Otway, Sothern, and others ; in all 77 Plays, 69 with portraits, in 7 vol. calf and half bound (in addition a specomen play in original wrappers, issued without portrait), VERY SCARCE 12mo. Rachel Randall, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, 1785-88, and R. Butters, Fleet Street, n. d. (c. 1785) *,* No representative collection of Shakespeare’s plays wanting similar specimens to the above can be considered complete, since they represent the final appreciation of the Poet by the masses of his countrymen, and the last stages by which his works had been gradually circulating during the 18th century throughout all classes of society. 4s You Like It can he traced im the British Museum catalogue, but without the plate, whilst only 3 or 4 of the remaining plays appeared to be entered, all apparently with the plates missing. Murphy’s first faree, The Apprentice, is of interest, containing nearly 40 quotations from various plays of Shakespeare. From a price list of the Randall series (see slip in vol.) it appears that Shakespeare’s plays were sold at 3d. each, and several of the others at 2d. only. Perhaps no other collection of similar extent could now be formed. Shakespeare. Julius Cesar; a Tragedy, written by William Shakespear, J. Tonson and others, 1729—Othello, the Moor of Venice ; a Tragedy, John Darl, dc. 1724—King Lear, a Tragedy, 1b. dc. 1723—Hamlet, Prince of Denmark ; a Tra- gedy, ib. dc. 1723 (pp. 41 to 56 transposed by binder), good copies, in 1 vol. with two others, old calf sm. 12mo *,* These small separate editions of Shakespeare’s plays are not only very scarce, but likely to be much sought after as it becomes realised what important links they form in the chain of publications by which the Poet’s reputation gradually extended during the 18th century. The above were all pub- lished at 1s. each, and only the Othello is in the British Museum catalogue. The King Lear ante-dates the earliest small edition in the Museum catalogue by ten years, whilst there is no small edition of Hamlet between 1710 and 1773. The Hamlet and Julius Cesar were both unknown to Lowndes. Shakespeare. The Tragical History of King Richard III, alter’d from Shakespear, by C. Cibber, ttle in red and black, fron- tispiece, printed for J. and R. Tonson and J. Watts, 1753— Garth (Dr.) The Dispensary, a Poem in 6 cantos, plates, in 1 vol. sm. 12mo *,* A scarce edition, unknown to Lowndes, and not in the British Museum catalogue.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31665366_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
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