May 04, 2023 - Sale 2635

Sale 2635 - Lot 20

Price Realized: $ 6,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
Chettle, Henry (d. circa 1607)
The Tragedy of Hoffman or A Revenge for a Father, as it hath bin divers times acted with great applause at the Phenix in Druery-lane.

London: Printed by I[ohn] N[orton] for Hugh Perry, 1631.

First and only edition, quarto, bound in modern full polished calf by Roger de Coverlay, edges gilt and gauffered; title page mounted with restored corners, closed tear to E1 without loss of text; blank top margin of F2 restored; purchased from Seven Gables in 1970; 6 3/4 x 4 5/8 in.

STC 5125; Greg II 438 (A); Pforzheimer 182; ESTC S107798.

Chettle's pure revenge play is not only in the same genre as Shakespeare's Hamlet, it was performed for the first time in 1602, before Hamlet was written. Chettle himself was a poet, playwright, editor, and pamphleteer, known for his early slights written against the bard and published in his 1592 Greenes Groatsworth of Wit.