1790 Plays & Poems of Wm Shakespeare 1st Edition by Malone

This is a rare 1790 First Edition of ‘THE PLAYS AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, IN TEN VOLUMES; COLLATED VERBATIM WITH THE MOST AUTHENTICK COPIES AND REVISED; WITH THE CORRECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF VARIOUS COMMENTATORS; TO WHICH ARE ADDED, AN ESSAY OF THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF HIS PLAYS; AN ESSAY RELATIVE TO SHAKSPEARE AND JONSON; A DISSERTATION ON THE THREE PARTS OF KING HENRY VI; AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH STAGE; AND NOTES; BY EDMOND MALONE… LONDON: PRINTED BY H. BALDWIN, …MDCCXC.

The books are effectively an 11 volume set, as the first two volumes are referred to as I.P.1 and I.P.2, being part 1 and 2 of the first volume. It is illustrated throughout with portrait engravings, diagrams and charts, and a fold-out plate. Comes with extensive printed footnotes. There is a glossarial index in the final volume. The books have their contemporary full tan calf boards, with marbled paper-laid interiors. There is a little wear and bruising to the edges of the leather. There is a spine that is gilt ruled in six compartments with gilt lettering and flower decoration. On the inside there is only very minor staining and discoloration to all the volumes, except Volume VI, which has had some water damage, splitting the leather of the spine and staining a small area of the top middle pages in pink. A couple of volumes have the odd loose group of pages, but they are intact and complete. The spine has been slightly restored, so doesn’t detract too much. Each inside cover of the 11 books have a circular sticker, representing an Earl’s Coronet and the letters CR. There is also an affixed card with a dove or swallow and the Motto FAMAM EXTENDERE FACTIS, which seems to link them to the Monckton-Arundell family (Lord Galway). There is also a small ink signature, that is later and is dated 1836.

The first edition of Malone’s Shakespeare appeared in 1790 - regarded as very important and an incredibly scarce text in the original complete form. After the publication of this edition Malone died leaving much unfinished material. James Boswell the younger gathered this and, after almost a decade of preparation, published in 1821 a 21-volume landmark edition which is known as the third Variorum Edition, and which became a staple of the Shakespeare reprint trade. Edmond Malone (1741-1812) is regarded as the greatest eighteenth-century Shakespearean editor and commentator. He used the ten-volume edition by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens as his base text but went far beyond Johnson and Steevens in establishing an authoritative text, consulting early folios and quartos more thoroughly than any previous scholar had done. Moreover, using archives from London, Stratford and country houses, he both expanded biographical knowledge of Shakespeare and corrected errors which had been perpetuated from Rowe’s “Life of Shakespeare” onwards. He arranged the plays in their supposed order of composition, and he included the poems as a standard part of an edition.

Size book: 19.5 x 12.7 x 3.7 cm (7 5/8 x 5 x 1 ½ inches)
Total set: 19.5 x 12.7 x 44.5 cm (7 5/8 x 5 x 17 ½ inches)
Weight: 7660g