Books

An attractively bound set of the Oxford Shakespeare, using the seminal text edited by William James Craig in 1891 and including an introduction by Swinburne. This edition was first published from 1911 to 1912. Three vols, octavo (175 x 114 mm). Contemporary red half morocco for Charles E. Lauriat of Boston, spines lettered in gilt, compartments framed in gilt and stamped with central gilt device, red cloth sides ruled in gilt, red endpapers, edges gilt. Portrait frontispieces after the Chandos, First Folio, and Stratford-upon-Avon bust likenesses. Bindings bright, slight bowing and rubbing, particularly to cloth sides of Histories. A very good set. .

Comedies, Histories & Tragedies is a collection of William Shakespeare's plays, published in the First Folio in 1623, seven years after his death. Compiled by his colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell, it is considered one of the most influential books ever published in the English language.