The elusive fifth volume of Jacob Tonson and Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's Works offering several hundred early 18th century annotations to the text. The annotator has made dozens of manuscript textual emendations, introduced additional handwritten stage directions, and attempted to elucidate difficult words in Shakespeare’s text. In a moment of great critical insight the annotator has added lines spoken by Antigone from Seneca’s Phoenician Women below the printed passage where Lear is persuaded that he stands on Dover Cliff - surely a connection that had not previously been made in print? In many particulars our annotator’s beautifully regular hand resembles that of Pope although Pope’s writing when annotating books tends to be more italic and the angles and loops of our annotator’s ascenders and descenders are not quite right for the poet. Certainly however our annotator was a near contemporary of the poet and Shakespeare editor and they have explored quite a few of Pope’s innovations in his printed edition (cf for example ‘looking on ye gold’ re Pope’s ‘To the Gold’ Pope’s inserted stage direction, Timon IV.3.381) while also being happy to disagree with some of Pope’s editorial decisions: to Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech our annotator has written ‘sometimes she gallops o’er a Lawyer’s Nose’ in place of the printed text ‘Sometimes she gallops o’er a Courtier’s Nose’ (p2088). The annotator’s little thesaurus entries which are used for difficult words are fascinating for the insight into lexical difficulties in the early 18th century: ‘Swash, to dash, clash, or brag’ for Romeo and Juliet’s ’swashing blow’ (p2077) and there is a special attention paid to some of the tragedies’ great moments such as Macbeth’s ‘if it were done..’ and Hamlet’s soliloquy, ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave’. These 2-300 manuscript additions to the text will repay future study.
DESCRIPTION: Contemporary marbled boards with a simple cloth reback probably in the 19th century. The book collates complete with de Gucht’s Shakespeare frontispiece and an engraved frontispiece to each of the plays - the very first illustrations of Shakespeare’s plays ever to be published.
HISTORY: This edition was edited by the poet Nicholas Rowe, and is the first Octavo edition and only the fifth complete printing of the plays, and the first to appear after the four Folio Editions of the seventeenth century. It is now regarded as one of the most influential in shaping our modern understanding of Shakespeare. Tonson and Rowe achieve their pre-eminence among Shakespeare printers and editors through a series of innovations. We learn here for the first time where scenes from the dramas actually take place - Lear's Heath is named, for example. The text gives characters the names we know them by and divides acts and scenes, as well as making hundreds of emendations to the text. Here we have modern punctuation and, crucially, this is the first illustrated edition, with a handsome engraving placed before each play. ESTC: T138296.
