Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis,The Rape of Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnets, Pericles
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905. Very Good. Item #002738
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1905. Limited Edition. Signed by editor Sidney Lee and numbered 732 of 1000 copies on colophon at front. Facsimiles of the respective unique First Edition copies in the Malone Collection at the Bodleian Library.
Quarto (10.25" x 8.25"); 75, [54 facsimile], 56, [94], 57, [64], 71, [80], 48, 6, [70]. Most facsimile pages still uncut along top edge. Rebacked in later brown leather with earlier calf retained. Red leather title card to spine with gilt lettering. New endpapers. Older leather chipped along edges, with some general scuffs and smudges. A few introductory pages to Lucrece with spots of toning from a previously laid-in paper, else pages clean and unmarked. Binding is sound.
Sir Sidney Lee was an assistant editor for the Dictionary of National Biography, contributing around 800 articles to the collection, including the entry on Shakespeare which he developed into a book-length biography. He edited Oxford's facsimile edition of the First Folio (1902), a series of other facsimiles of extant editions (such as this volume), and eventually a Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Though only a few poems from The Passionate Pilgrim and parts of Pericles are attributed to Shakespeare, Lee included them in their context of having been originally printed with the first edition of the sonnets.
Price: $450.00