Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$3750.00 + shipping
Description: Folio; from the fourth folio, pages 212-226. . The London Prodigal, TEXT IS COMPLETE, [Together with:] Pericles, Prince of Tyre, lacking 6 leaves, pp. 197/198, 199/200, 203/204, 205/206, 207/208, 209/210. Present are 11 leaves in total. Both bound together in contemporary blue boards. Text is very good, with generous margins; text is lightly age-toned; boards are lightly browned at edges. Printed on laid paper. A very good copy.
Seller: Charles Parkhurst Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Surprise, AZ, U.S.A.
Price: US$72500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: The fourth and final of the 17th century Folios in which Shakespeare's plays were first collected. First State, without Chiswell's name in the publisher's imprint on the title-page. Contemporary full paneled calf, expertly rebacked in period style. The boards are scuffed and worn at the edges [most pronounced at the lower corners]. The first leaf, with the frontispiece portrait on the verso over a few lines of verse, is provided in facsimile. The title-page has been laid down with loss in the upper left corner to the first five letters of 'Comedies' and all but four or five letters of the Author's name [all of which were supplied long ago in manuscript facsimile]. The upper left corner of the dedication leaf [A1 of the preliminaries] has been similarly repaired with loss on the recto of only 10 or so letters in the first line [again supplied]. The top quarter of the page has been reinforced with paper on the verso, covering up the last eight lines of the Dedication [which have been rewritten in ink]. A repaired tear to the upper left corner of A2 affects only the typographical border on the recto. There is a one-inch square section of loss to the lower fore corner of the preliminaries and the first five leaves of text. On the preliminaries, it has been repaired with loss only to the typographical border. On the rectos of A1 through A5 of the text, there is loss to four-and-a-half catchwords only. On the versos just a handful of letters are affected [9 touched on A1, 10 lost on A2, 5 touched on A3 and 6 lost on A4] all, again, supplied in ms. facsimile. There are a few other scattered marginal repairs, occasionally affecting the typographical border only, and the final leaf has been laid down without loss. There is an occasional old ink annotation or correction, and the same hand has added page numbers to the list of plays, along with the titles of the seven added plays which the publisher had omitted. Otherwise, apart from a few instances of minor spotting or soiling and an odd tiny rust hole or two, the book is in very good condition. Shakespeare Folios are often found with entire pages of text missing and supplied either in facsimile or from other copies [detectable because they are almost always of a different size]. That's not the case here as all text pages are present and original, making this a very desirable copy.
Seller: Clarel Rare Books, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$180000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 4th folio, 1st issue of Shakespeare's plays, the heart of English literature. 19th century full black morocco, fine condition and unrestored, beautiful beyond good fortune and with all of the visual satisfaction so prized by the parts of us that are superficial, a particularly appropriate and resonant antique. That said, these folios should be valued from the inside out and that is where this one's merits excel. Flaws first: The portrait has some light foxing (mostly at the margins), the title page and 5% of the text pages have intermittent stains, there are a few small chips and tears at the edges (all of them confined to the blank margins), some of them closed, and some of them left alone, tiny rust holes of no impact, and half a dozen margins are very slightly miscut, but don't be deceived by my fussy attention to details. This book is complete and authentic, every letter of text is genuine, and better still (remarkably so), no leaves are remargined or extended, and other Shakespeare folios, offered over many years, cannot, honestly, make these claims, including those offered these days for more money. A 336-year old ideal, tall and wide, an exemplary and glorious copy of what continues to prevail as the book of books. Ex-Elizabeth Young, the initial owner, with her ink signature to the title page. Ex-Thomas Jefferson McKee (bookplate) sold at his auction (Anderson's, NY, April 29-30, 1901, lot 2602), and the McKee sale was a spectacular one, featuring rarities that have become impossibilities (for example, he had 529 English quarto plays printed before 1700). So, this folio is of a quality standard that was high 120 years ago, and it was once part of the greatest American library auctioned up until that time. Collation: O2, A4, A-Y6, Z4, BB-ZZ6, *AAA- DDD6, EEE8, AAA-ZZZ6, AAAA-BBBB6, CCCC2, 458 leaves with the usual mispaginations. References: Greg III 1119. Pforzheimer 910. Bartlett 123. Wing S 2915. Jaggard 497. We've been selling these heirlooms since 1980, and look at 10 for every 1 we buy, and the folios available these days are offered with descriptions that harken real estate advertising jargon. Average copies, presented with unwarranted praise, and covered in worn, repaired or rebacked bindings, or worse yet, new bindings, with their veneer of glitter, like some farm girl sculpted from marzipan, may sell near our price when made lifelike by morticians in the guise of conservators, and may sell for even less when lost text or pages have been replaced in facsimile. But you can't make a wit out of 2 halfwits, and a chicken sent traveling does not come back an eagle, so if you want a stalwart folio, that will bring lasting pride of ownership in the most urbane and cultivated of libraries, this is it. Better copies are unavailable and here are 2 timeless realities about Shakespeare folios in this condition. Unequivocal immortality is a given, and on those unpredictable occasions when copies like this one are offered for sale, the zaniest inversion of inevitability, is to fantasize that the next one will be finer and cheaper.
Seller: Biblioctopus, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$200000.00 + shipping
Description: "Incomparably The Most Important Work In The English Language" The Fourth Folio Edition of 'Shakespeare's Plays' A Beautiful Tall Copy, With Seven New Plays SHAKESPEAR[E], William. Mr. William Shakespear's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. Unto which is added, Seven Plays, Never before Printed in Folio: viz. Pericles Prince of Tyre. The London Prodigal. The History of Thomas Lord Cromwel. Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine. The Fourth Edition. London: Printed for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley, 1685. The Fourth Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, first state of the imprint (without Chiswell's name). Tall copy. Large folio (14 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches; 368 x 233 mm). [12], 96, 99-160, 163-254, 243 [i.3. 253]-272, [1], [1, blank], 328, 303, [3, blank] pp. (page 33 is numbered 23, 107 is numbered 109, 109 is 111, 190 is 186, 191 is 187, 219 is 221, 246 is 234, 253 repeated is 243, and 67 is 76). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout, with ten-line poem by Ben Jonson, entitled "To the Reader," underneath. Woodcut printer's device on title-page (McKerrow 263). Decorative woodcut initials. A large copy in contemporary full mottled calf, rebacked to style. With spine label, lettered in gilt. Boards stamped in blind. All edges speckled red. With quite generous margins. Small repaired closed tear on leaf F, barely affecting text. Occasional light soiling and a few small stains to title-page. A few tiny holes to leaves G2, affecting one letter and Cccc2 affecting two letters. A light dampstain to bottom outer corner of signature F. Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown. Overall a beautiful copy of this important book. Housed in a custom 19th-century full morocco clamshell. The Fourth Folio was the stateliest of all the folios, being printed on a Royal stock, distinctly larger than the sheets of the Third Folio, which in turn is on a larger sheet than the First and Second. The last edition of Shakespeare's plays printed in the seventeenth century and the last to be printed before the editorial endeavors of the eighteenth century. First issue, without Richard Chiswell listed in the imprint, as he was listed on the second issue (the third issue lists Herringman alone). For this fourth edition Shakespeare's text was assigned to three different printers (one of whom has since been identified as Robert Roberts), who typeset their sections simultaneously, thus shortening the time it took to get to market. When the work was finished and the three sections of printed sheets collated, there was a shortage of 17 sheets from the second section (for the full press run), which were hastily reprinted without the characteristic borders around the text. Copies have been found with these second state sheets. In the copy offered here all of the sheets are in the original settings and with the borders. A second anomaly distinguishes this edition: "The copy for this edition was divided among several shops. Some miscalculation apparently occurred so that the equivalent of about one column of additional matter had to be crowded into Sig L [pp. 123/124] which is therefore printed in a much smaller type than the rest of the volume" (Pforzheimer). Although there is no accurate census of the number of folios still extant today, it is believed that copies of each printing number only in the hundreds. Shakespeare's portrait is in the fourth state, as issued, with verses below (see Blayney, 19). The folios are "incomparably the most important work in the English language" (William A. Jackson). Because of their incalculable impact on the language, thought and literature of our world, they are among the most desirable of all English language books, the prizes of any collection. Bartlett 123A. Greg III, p. 1119. Jaggard, p. 497. Pforzheimer 910. Wing S2915. HBS 67106. $200,000.
Seller: Heritage Book Shop, ABAA, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$211775.65 + shipping
Description: The fourth folio, the last of the 17th-century editions of Shakespeare's works and the most grandly produced, this issue with the imprint naming Joseph Knight and Francis Saunders, the booksellers to whom Herringman had entrusted his retail business. There were three issues, with slightly different imprints. John Macock printed the title page for Herringman's copies, "to be sold by Joseph Knight and Francis Saunders". Robert Roberts printed the title pages for the other issues from a single type setting, with either three or four booksellers named. There is no known precedence among the three issues, but Macock's title is much the rarer of the two settings; the online Shakespeare Census locates thirty-five extant copies, only five in private hands. The 1623 first folio, edited by John Heminge and Henry Condell, contained thirty-six plays, to which seven plays were added in 1664 by Philip Chetwin for the second issue of the third folio, of which only Pericles is in part the authentic work of Shakespeare. This fourth folio was a straight reprint of the second issue of the third folio, issued by Henry Herringman in conjunction with other booksellers, part of Herringman's larger project of publishing pre-Restoration playwrights in folio. The Shakespeare volume was the centrepiece of Herringman's trio completed by the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 and the Ben Jonson folio of 1692. The most immediately striking aspect of the fourth folio is its height: Herringman used a larger paper size to increase the number of lines per page and decrease the bulk of the book. Although this is the only edition in which each play does not start on a fresh page, it is in a larger font and more liberally spaced than the three earlier editions. (The two pages of sig. L1 are set in smaller type, presumably after the discovery that some text had been omitted.) The text was set from a copy of the third folio divided into three portions and sent to three different London printers. The Comedies were printed by Robert Roberts, the Histories and first four Tragedies by Robert Everingham, and the remaining Tragedies by Everingham's former master printer, John Macock; the three parts are separately paginated. The fourth folio remained the favoured edition among collectors until the mid-18th century, when Samuel Johnson and Edward Capell argued for the primacy of the first folio text. In common with the third, the fourth folio dropped the final "e" from Shakespeare's name, a spelling that persisted until the beginning of the 19th century. Bartlett 123; Gregg III, p. 1121; Jaggard, p. 497; Pforzheimer 910; Wing S-2915. Folio (360 x 232 mm). Eighteenth-century blind-panelled reversed calf, red morocco label, red edges. Engraved portrait by Martin Droeshout above the verses To the Reader on verso of the first leaf, double column text within typographical rules, woodcut initials. Joints and front inner hinge neatly repaired, frontispiece leaf neatly restored at lower outer corner and at inner margin, engraved and printed area untouched, last leaf backed, a few minor blemishes, sig. O4 with two small paper repairs in upper margin, small paper repair to outer margin of 2L2, spill-burn causing small hole in 2M2 touching two letters either side, 3B3 restored at lower corner with small portion of frame supplied in pen facsimile, small paper repair at lower margin of 3C3, a little tight in the gutter but otherwise generous margins, generally clean and fresh, a very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom