Beschreibung:

SHAKESPEARE, William. Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. Unto which is added seven playes never before printed in folio . London: for H. Herringman, E. Brewster and R. Bentley, 1685. Large 2° mostly in 6s, (368 x 230mm). Title and double-column text within rule borders, ornamental initials and vignettes. (Portrait frontispiece in facsimile, tears repaired in 10 leaves affecting up to 5 lines without loss, tear in Bbb5 affects 19 lines without loss, old inkstain on O2, some spotting, a few other light stains, last two leaves remargined and repaired with slight loss of text.) Reprint of the Droeshout portrait bound at end. Olive brown morocco with double gilt filet with pellet decoration round covers, spine in compartments with gilt lettering and filets, 4 gilt filets round turn-ins with arrow and green morocco pellet cornerpieces, g.e., by Douglas Cockerell, dated 1904. Provenance : Sir William Brownlowe of Belton in the County of Lincoln Baronet (armorial bookplate on verso of title, dated 1698); pencil inscription of upper outer corner of front free endpaper 'T.E.L. 1.3.8.'; Michael Knatchbull (presentation inscription dated 1927 on verso of title). FOURTH FOLIO EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. The printing of this, the largest of the early folio editions, was undertaken by three separate shops, of which only Robert Roberts, the printer of the Comedies has been identified. Wing S-2915; Greg III-1119 variant (*); Pforzheimer 910. The pencil inscription on the front free endpaper is very close to the inscriptions recorded in T.E. Lawrence's library at Clouds Hill, as published in T.E. Lawarence by his Friends (London 1937), pp.476-510. The numerals could represent the date 1 March 1908, when Lawrence was in his first year as an undergraduate at Oxford. From the later inscription on the verso of the title, it would appear that Lawrence sold the volume prior to his departure for the North West Frontier in 1926.