1447400 1784 Shakespeare. Stockdale's Edition.

 

Shakespeare, William.  Stockdale's Edition of Shakespeare: Including, in One Volume, The Whole of His Dramatic Works, with Explanatory Notes  London: John Stockdale, 1784. Thick octavo, full contemporary red morocco ruled in gilt, spine elaborately tooled in compartments with a sunburst motif, black morocco spine label lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt dentelles, all edges gilt. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare, and preliminaries including Rowe's life of Shakespeare and Shakespeare's will. One page of publisher's advertisements at rear. Early ink inscription to preliminary blank: "bequeathed to my dear brother Ernest, remembrance after my Death." Lightest shelfwear, offsetting from portrait, light scattered foxing.   First single-volume octavo edition of Shakespeare's plays, lightly footnoted, designed to appeal to "the middling and lower ranks of the inhabitants of this country," who had been priced out of previous editions, as well as to those readers looking for a light alternative to their library sets: "The book now offered to the public may commodiously be taken into a coach or a post-chaise, for amusement in a journey. Or if a company of gentlemen should happen, in conversation, to mention Shakespeare, or to dispute concerning any particular passage, a volume containing the whole of his plays may, with great convenience, be fetched by a servant out of a library or a closet." Stockdale includes all thirty-six plays represented in the 1623 First Folio, with the text "as it has been settled by the most approved commentators." A bright and attractive example of a popular milestone in Shakespeare printing.