1447300 1775 Shakespeare. Beautifully Bound Poems. Octavo.

 

Shakespeare.  Poems Written by Mr. William Shakespeare.  London: Thomas Evans, [1775].  Octavo, Contemporary full polished calf, spine elaborately tooled in gilt, black morocco spine label, black ribbon marker.  Engraved portrait on title page.  Joints expertly reinforced, corners bumped.  Handsomely bound eighteenth-century edition of Shakespeare's poems.  This collection incloudes Shakespeare's two major narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece (here titled Tarquin and Lucrece) and the sonnets, a landmark in the history of the English lyric, first published as a group in 1609.  The complete poems including both narrative poems and the sonnets first published in 1640.