The Dramatic Works. Printed from the Text of the Corrected Copies of Steevens and Malone. With a Life of the Poet, by Charles Symmons, a Glossary, and Sixty Embellishments. A New Edition.

SHAKESPEARE, William.

Published by London: printed by C. Whittingham for Charles Tilt, 1836

About this Item

A finely bound volume with a likely contemporary fore-edge painting of Anne Hathaway's cottage. It has the gilt bookplate of Willis Vickery (1859-1932) and is listed in the sale catalogue of his library. Vickery was a judge and editor of Shakespeare whose impressive collection featured all four Folios and an array of luxury bindings, of which a number had fore-edge paintings. Hathaway's childhood home was a favourite subject of 19th-century fore-edge paintings ever since Washington Irving's Sketch Book (1820), with its chapter on Stratford-on-Avon, "occasioned what has become an unending series of pilgrimages to that and other literary shrines" (Weber, p. 83). This watercolour may be the work of Winifred Arthur (1864-1934), a Liverpool-based fore-edge painter whose grandfather founded (and whose father was a director of) Howell's, the booksellers for whom this volume was bound. This painting, however, does not feature her monogram. Provenance: Stephen C. Massey. American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, Rare Books from the Library of the Late Willis Vickery, 1-3 March 1993, lot 659. Carl Jefferson Weber, Fore Edge Painting; a Historical Survey of a Curious Art in Book Decoration, 1966. Duodecimo (178 x 111 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece with tissue guard, vignette title page, illustrations to text, text printed in two columns. Near-contemporary red crushed morocco for Howell, Liverpool, spine lettered in gilt, compartments elaborately gilt, two gilt rolls and French fillet to boards with decorative cornerpieces, matching tooling to turn-ins, black coated endpapers, edges gilt. Housed in a custom red cloth slipcase with Spanish moiré pattern marbled paper sides. A few spots of foxing, but a fine copy.

Seller Inventory # 180995

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Dramatic Works. Printed from the Text of the Corrected Copies of Steevens and Malone. With a Life of the Poet, by Charles Symmons, a Glossary, and Sixty Embellishments. A New Edition.
• Publisher: London: printed by C. Whittingham for Charles Tilt, 1836