Books

This is an excellent example of the Second Folio, the second edition of Shakespeare's collected plays. This is "incomparably the most important work in the English language" (Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue). The First Folio, published in 1623, was such a success that just nine years later the collection was printed again. The Second Folio venture was undertaken by a group of booksellers and rights holders, some of whom had been members of the First Folio syndicate. The massive book includes 36 plays, half of which had not been printed prior to the First Folio, as well as commendatory verses and dedicatory epistles by contemporary admirers of Shakespeare. One of these, John Milton's "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare," was Milton's first appearance in print. For almost four centuries Shakespeare's transcendent genius has been recognized. In 1623 Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare, "He was not of an age, but for all time." In 1840 Thomas Carlyle…

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.