{"product_id":"1438600-1623-shakespeare","title":"1438600 1623 Shakespeare.  Henry VIII.  Complete.","description":"9659. \u003cdiv align=\"center\"\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKing Henry VIII.  From the First Folio.  1623.  \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv align=\"center\"\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e  First Printing.  Complete.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003eSHAKESPEARE. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight. Complete. [London: Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623]. Folio (8 by 12-1\/2 inches), modern half orange morocco gilt; 14 leaves. \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003eFirst edition, the entire text extracted from the landmark First Folio (1623) \"the most valuable volume in the whole range of English literature\" (Grolier 100 19) of Shakespeare’s spectacular dramatization of the reign of Henry VIII.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003e \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003eSamuel Taylor Coleridge called Henry VIII (1613) a \"show play,\" and it did indeed engross its first audiences: at an early performance, spectators watched the action on stage while the Globe theatre burned around them, a blaze ignited by the celebratory cannon fire called for in Act One. Beneath its pomp, however, the play is the Bard’s vision for the future of England that concentrated deliberately on the use and abuse of power.  \"[It] is less a chronicle play than one that reflects a deliberate, dialectical movement from romance to history in order to showcase political reality, personal ambition, power and religion\" (Lee, Shakesperean Criticism, Vol. 61, Introduction).\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003e \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003eShakespeare’s associates John Heminges and Henry Condell prepared the First Folio; in 1623, William and Isaac Jaggard along with the bookseller Edward Blount published it. Of Shakespeare’s 39 undisputed plays, 18 survive solely because they appear in the 1623 Folio. Fewer than 250 copies of the First Folio survive, and most of those copies are incomplete. Ornamental woodcut headpiece and small decorative intial to leaf t3. Leaves t3-[x4], paginated 205-232 (leaf v2r mispaginated 218). With press variants: t4v with all five corrected readings; t6r.b23 with defective \"m\" in \"Chamber\" replaced; v3 signed. Shakespeare wrote this play with John Fletcher, making it the only collaborative play included in the First Folio; John Heminge and Henry Condell perhaps regarded it as a proper conclusion to the Histories. The text of the first edition was plausibly set from the authors’ foul papers. Jaggard, 346. Bookseller’s ticket to front pastedown.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003e \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\" size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eHenry VIII is one of eighteen plays for which there are no known printings prior to the First Folio; for all intents and purposes the present copy is a first edition of a Shakespeare play.  It is one of the last (if not the very last) plays written by Shakespeare and was written in collaboration with John Fletcher who succeeded Shakespeare as the leading dramatist with The King’s Men in 1612.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e  Fine","brand":"1623","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41033783017645,"sku":"9659","price":23000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0284\/7646\/products\/9659.jpg?v=1636224778","url":"https:\/\/www.nrarities.com\/products\/1438600-1623-shakespeare","provider":"The Gillespie Collection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}