The Plays of William Shakespeare, In Eight Volumes with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators to which are Added notes by Samuel Johnson

Contemporary full speckled calf with black and red spine labels. Wear to extremities. Hinge with lower cover of Vol I very tender; first flyleaf of Vol VI beginning to detach. The frontispiece image of Shakespeare appears correctly opposite the general title page of Vol I; overleaf in an 18th century hand is written ‘D Garrick Esq.r’ below the mark where an image of Garrick was previously mounted. Vol I contains, multiple introductions by Johnson, Pope, Theobald etc together with a Life of Shakespeare and The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Two Gentlemen, Measure for Mercant and The Merchant of Venice; Vol VI has Lear, Timon, Titus, Macbeth and Coriolanus. Foxing throughout both volumes; small oval library stamp at the head of the first page of text.