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Some rubbing and foxing to covers. Paper spine rubbed away.; This copy inscribed by the author in pencil on front endpaper: "Mrs Fred Stoope / with kind regards . from W. H. Trimble / July 1926". An omnibus edition combining two of the author's lectures on Shakespeare. [4], [4], [34], [4], [16] pages. Card covers with printed title label "Shakespeare Lectures. W. H. Trimble" on front cover. Page dimensions: 257 x 206mm. Pages printed on one side only. The main text of the first lecture is 17 numbered pages, of which pages 16 and 17 are an Index. The main text of the second lecture is 7 numbered pages. Each of the lectures has its own title page. The first lecture is titled "Notes for a Lecture on Shakespeare & The Merchant of Venice". The copy included in this volume is number 34 of an edition of 60 copies. The second lecture is titled: "Shakespeare's Ancient Pistol : A Lecture". The copy included in this volume is number 12 of an edition of 50 copies. The first lecture is divided into 31 paragraphs. It covers diverse topics including the less favourable views on Shakespeare of Tolstoy, Cobbett and others. It also covers the theme of anti-Semitism and the history of the treatment of Jews in England. "But altho' we regard the Jew as one of ourselves, within our own time and in quite recent years, the persecution of the Jews in Poland and Russia has been nothing short of abominable. Before the Great World War there were considerable parites in the Austrian and German Empires, known as Anti-Semites; whose main business in life appears to have been the stirring up of theological and racial animosity. And in 1894, when the French military system was found to be a mass of incompetence, and riddled with treason certain of the guilty parties made a scape-goat of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, because he was a Jew." - pages 12-13. Pages 4 to 6 of the first lecture contain thoughts on the Shakespeare authorship controversy, and theory that the plays were authored by Francis Bacon or other candidates. "There are in several of the other plays, references to Italy which we are told, could not have been made by Shakespeare unless he had visited that country." - page 4. "The authorship of the Shakespeare plays has been ascribed not only to Francis Bacon; but also to Sir Walter Raleigh; to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford; to William Stanley, Earl of Derby; to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury; and to Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland, respectively. [. . .] In 'A Houseboat on the Styx,' the ghost of Shakespeare quarrels with the ghost of Bacon in regard to the authorship of 'Hamlet'; the dispute being settled by the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh delivering that he wrote the play himself. As to the arguments favouring de Vere, or Stanley, or Cecil, or Manners, I am merely aware that all four have been put forward as candidates for the Shakespeare honours: but I have not read any details." - pages 5-6. "It is when we examine such passages as I have noticed - comparing them with the thoughts, impressions, and opinions of the present day, that we realise the greatness of Shakespeare as prophet, seer, and poet. He speaks to us from the beginning of the seventeenth century: telling us our own thoughts in our own tonge: and expressing them with such force, beauty, and simplicity, that a very large number of his sentences have become incorporated with our every-day language." - page 15. Trimble was librarian of the Hocken Library in Dunedin. His other publications include the "Catalogue of the Hocken Library" (1912) and two publications on Walt Whitman. Not in Bagnall. Seller Inventory # 26212
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