1437500 1623 Shakespeare. Hamlet. Complete.

 

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Extracted from the Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies [The First Folio].  London: Isaac Jaggard & Ed. Blount, 1623.  Folio. Pp. 152-156, 257-280, complete. Half blue morocco. First leaf backed with paper on recto, with Hamlet beginning on the verso. Inserted at the front are facsimiles of Ben Jonson’s To the Reader: and the First Folio title- page, modified to refer to Hamlet. Some staining, occasional faults and tears, last leaf restored at gutter. A very good copy. Quarter morocco case.

 

First Folio edition of Hamlet, the earliest obtainable printing of this pinnacle achievement of Western civilization.  

 

The significance of the play in the development of Western thought cannot be exaggerated. Hamlet was one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays in his lifetime and it has long been recognized as his greatest achievement. Hamlet is the most-performed of Shakespeare’s plays, the most-filmed work of literature, and one of the most-quoted works in the English language. Hamlet’s soliloquy beginning “To be, or not to be” is perhaps the best-known and most quoted of Shakespeare’s writings.

 

“Hamlet is the launch pad for a quite different, more profound and multi-layered Shakespeare. . . . Hamlet is the unilateral declaration of independence which marks the birth of the Jacobean Shakespeare… It has been voted masterwork of the last thousand years, surpassing Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, the King James Bible, the Taj Mahal” (Anthony Holden).

 

Harold Bloom describes the impact of the character of Hamlet, “he seems not to be just a literary or dramatic character. His total effect upon the world’s culture is incalculable. After Jesus, Hamlet is the most cited figure in Western consciousness.”

 

The First Folio “is the greatest contribution made in a single volume to the secular literature of any age or country. By the English-speaking peoples it must always be regarded as the proudest monument of their literary history” (Sidney Lee).

 

Printing and the Mind of Man 122, Grolier 100 English Books, STC 22273 (all citing the First Folio).

Provenance: Florence and Edward Kaye (bookplate).