?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
Chapman, George (1559?-1634) May-Day. A Witty Comedie, Divers Times Acted at the Blacke Fryers.
London: Printed [by William Stansby] for John Browne, 1611.
First edition, quarto, woodcut printer's device to title page; bound in 19th century half red morocco and marbled paper boards, worn; text toned with chipping margins, some headlines and catchwords cropped with loss; ex libris James Stevens Cox, with bookplate, 6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.
STC 4980; Greg 297; Pforzheimer 154.
"A carinvalesque comedy, a celebration of festive disorder, based on Piccolomini's Alessandro, [May-Day] intercuts between three different plotlines through the figure of Lodovico, a typically vital Chapmanesque intriguer. The use of music, dance, and masque elements points up the representational choices Chapman was beginning to make and suggests that he was taking full advantage of the choices available to him on the Blackfriars stage." (DNB)
