Sales catalogue: Quaritch

Date:
March 1886
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/17/40
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Quaritch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/60 page 3215
    _ BERNARD QUARITOH’S GENERAL CATALOGUE. under the superintendence of F. J. Furnivann, Esq., w.a., Camb., founder and director of the New Shakspeare Society, of Mr. W. Grieas, 38 vols. small 4to. hf. Rorburghe, when prepaid, £11. 88 1881-8 “The Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles. The admirable and inexpensive series of photo- graphic reproductions of the early quarto editions of Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems, executed by Messrs. W. Griggs and C. Praetorius, under the superintendence of Dr. F. J. Furnivall, will hereafter be issued by Mr. B. Quaritch, the well-known bookseller of 15 Piccadilly, London; and the work will now go on as rapidly as possible until completed. Already 34 Quartos have been photographed, 19 lithographed, 15 published, and others are in hand. The first fifteen Quartos, now ready, are the two Hamlets, 1603 and 1604, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1598 (Burby). The Merchant of Venice, 1600 (Roberts). The Rape of Lucrece, 1594, all with Forewords by Dr. Furnivall; the two Midsummer Night Dreams, 1600 (Fisher and Roberts), with Introductions by the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth ; the first and second Parts of Henry IV., with Forewords by Mr. Herbert A. Evans; The Merry Wives, Richard III., and the two Lears, 1608, all with Intro- ductions by Mr. P. A. Daniel ; The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, with an Introduction by Prof. Dowden ; Venus and Adonis, with an Introduction by Mr. Arthur Symons.. “The volumes, which are bound in the so-called ‘Roxburge’ style (half calf with cloth sides), are sold at 6s (about $1.50) each to subscribers who pay at once for the whole series, The price for single volumes, is 10s 6d, and full sets will be sold only at this rate after all the 38 numbers are out. Asa large part of the edition of the first eight quartos was destroyed by fire, persons who wish to secure complete sets should send their subscriptions promptly to Mr. Quaritch, as above. “Some of our readers may remember that Mr. Ashbee’s facsimiles of the Quartos, issued by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps were sold at jive guineas (about $25) each. The new facsimiles cost little more than one-twentieth as much, and are in no respect inferior, while they have the valuable addition of critical Introductions to the text by some of our best Shakespearian scholars.” —W. J. Roire, a.m., in the Literary World, Boston, Mass., February 6, 1886, “ Griggs promises to work again. If he does, and Praetorius passes the Oxford and Cambridge unique Quartos soon, we shall finish the whole work in June.”—F, J. Furnivalt, February 18, 1886. Owen’s Stone Crosses, complete in 4 parts, woodcuts, 20s | 1885 - “ A very pleasant book for the general reader, as well as for antiquaries, is Mr. Owen’s ‘Old Stone: Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd.’ Not only does this handsome quarto contain scores of pictures of ruinous or well-preserved ancient crosses, but it is full of anecdote, and legend, and Welsh folk-lore. ‘The crosses themselves are extremely curious, and so archaic that the rude spirals which fill the field, where no ruder animals or men are engraved, remind one of almost exactly similar work on the ancient Mycenzan tombstone above the grave of Agamemnon. Mr. Owen, himself a clergyman in Wales, has a well-stored budget of Welsh traditions and popular customs. Clergymen are still asked to lift the spells laid by witches on their victims, and one parson had the credit of so influencing a man who had deserted his wife that he rushed home wildly, through bush and briar, and arrived all tattered and torn. The Welsh have some excellent Spartan ideas. A little boy came home defeated in a fight at school. ‘What!’ said the mother. ‘Go and lick that lad that licked thee, or thou shalt never haye a bit to eat, nor a drop to drink in this house.’ And the boy ‘did more—he did it,’ to quote the idiom of an old author. What, again, could be more Spartan than this reply of a Welsh matron ? Her husband was fond of fighting, and she said, ‘I would rather carry my bones home in my apron than that he should be beaten.’ This was a true descendant of the Welsh women, who, in the English wars which Mr. Davitt is kind enough to recall, followed the men to the field to torture and abominably mutilate the English wounded. As late as 1400 they are said to have thus set the example which the women of the Hadendowas followed when Baker’s ragged regiments were massacred. They were anxious to treat our men in the same fashion, but had not the opportunity, though some of them were struck by our bullets in the Arab charges near Sonakim.’’——Daily News, February 18, 1886.
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