The Works of William Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE, William.

Item Number: 143237

Cambridge and London: Macmillan and Co, 1863.

First edition of the “Cambridge Shakespeare,” with text based on collation and comparison of the Folio and Quarto editions of Shakespeare‘s works. Octavo, 9 volumes finely bound in full polished calf by Zaehnsdorf, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles stamp-signed by Zaehnsdorf. In very good condition.

The Cambridge Shakespeare was edited by William George Clark, William Aldis Wright, and John Glover. It was released in nine volumes between 1863 and 1866. Clark and Wright used the First Folio (1623) as their base text and collated it with the second, third, and fourth folios as well as all the known quarto editions. The edition modernized the orthography to 19th-century standards rather than preserve the variable Elizabethan spelling, but generally left the grammar and metre unchanged. In the edition, each page of a play contains a critical apparatus at the end. Where the folio text differs markedly from the quarto editions the quarto text is included in small type after the main text. Notes on variants, emendations, or pointing out or clarifying passages of particular difficulty or interest are placed at the end of each play. In what a modern editor called "a bold move for a Victorian edition", Clark and Wright restored various original phrases that had previously been considered profane, where needed to preserve metre or meaning.