1733, ISBN: 5fe7a14730b7358a4bcfe436b9cddd2f

[SC: 4.79], [PU: London: printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch J. Tonson F. Clay W. Feales and R. Wellington], DRAMA BSTOCK, Seven volumes, 8vo, portrait frontispiece in volume I by Duc… More...

[SC: 4.79], [PU: London: printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch J. Tonson F. Clay W. Feales and R. Wellington], DRAMA BSTOCK, Seven volumes, 8vo, portrait frontispiece in volume I by Duchange after Arlaud (frontispiece a little shaved at foredge), and pp. [xiv], lxviii, [v], [xiii] subscribers, 487; [iv], 536; [iv], 541, [1]; [iv], 511, [1]; [iv], 472; [iv], 464; [iv], 494, [9] table of editions; somewhat browned and foxed in many places, but complete, and bound in uniform contemporary calf, soundly rebacked; with new endpapers. First Theobald edition. Lewis Theobald's was the first truly critical edition of Shakespeare's works, and in many respects the greatest edition of the eighteenth century, certainly greater than any before Johnson. His edition has often been preferred to that of any other editors of Shakespeare, but his true primacy was obscured by the bitterness of his conflict with Alexander Pope, who denounced and satirised him in the Dunciad for daring to challenge the readings and method of Pope's own edition of Shakespeare. A modern study by Peter Seary, Lewis Theobald and the editing of Shakespeare (OUP, 1990), shows in detail the true measure of Theobald's achievement, concluding that he was 'the first to edit Shakespeare systematically, and from his work flowed all successive editions of Shakespeare, such studies of the language as Johnson's Dictionary, as well as studies of Elizabethan thought, manners and society. The hero of The Dunciad is, in short, also the founder of modern scholarship devoted to Renaissance English literature' (p. vii). Ford, Shakespeare 1700-1740, pp. 26-8; Jaggard p. 499; Lowndes p. 2259; Franklin, Shakespeare Domesticated, p. 15.<

1740, ISBN: 5fe7a14730b7358a4bcfe436b9cddd2f

[SC: 9.21], [PU: London Printed for H. Lintott et al], Second edition; 8 vols, 12mo (16.5 x 10 cm); titles in red, vol. 1 with portrait frontispiece, 36 further full-page engraved plates,… More...

[SC: 9.21], [PU: London Printed for H. Lintott et al], Second edition; 8 vols, 12mo (16.5 x 10 cm); titles in red, vol. 1 with portrait frontispiece, 36 further full-page engraved plates, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces, ownership stamp to front free endpaper of each vol.; contemporary gilt-ruled calf, gilt spine in compartments, edges stained red, head and tail of spine, joints and corners rubbed, internally crisp and clean; [48], 382; 430; 419, [1]; 466; 403, [1]; 465, [1]; 420; 342, [76]pp. A beautifully illustrated eight-volume set of Shakespeare's plays comprising the thirty-six dramatic works attributed to the Bard in the first folio, edited with explanatory notes by the literary critic Lewis Theobald (d.1744). Theobald's interest in Shakespeare was centred ultimately not on adaptation but the recovery and explication of the author's genuine text. In an earlier work, Shakespeare Restored, Theobald had cautioned that 'the more the Editions of any Book multiply, the more the Errors multiply too'. The Works of Shakespeare thus sought to stay true to the author's original intention, and attacked the 'Freedom of Mr. Pope' (Preface) whose 1725 edition of Shakespeare had taken greater liberty with the Bard's work. ESTC T54701; cf.Jaggard p.449., Books<