?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
Ford, John (1585-circa 1640) The Lovers Melancholy.
London: Printed [by Felix Kingston] for H[enry] Seile, 1629.
First edition, quarto, the author's first published play; title page and final leaf soiled and creased, small ink blot on B2 & B3; B3 & F4 with sidenotes slightly cropped, signature G foxed; bound in mid-19th century half calf and marbled paper boards; ex libris James Stevens Cox, with bookplate; several contemporary inscriptions, including small scribbles or pen trials, and a few scattered marginal annotations; 7 1/16 x 4 3/4 in.
STC 11163; Greg II 420 (A*); Pforzheimer 382; ESTC S102509; rare at auction, the last copy to sell at auction before the Pirie copy (2015) was in 1965.
The Lover's Melancholy was licensed for performance in November of 1628. The Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert was in charge of production of the play performed by the King's Men at Blackfriars and at the Globe Theatre. The text is based at least in part on Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. This influence is most visible in the masque of the mad from act II, scene 3.
