Apr 08, 2021 - Sale 2563

Sale 2563 - Lot 109

Price Realized: $ 500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 500
Ravenscroft, Edward (1654?-1707)
The Canterbury Guests; or, a Bargain Broken.

London: for Daniel Brown & John Walthoe, 1695.

First and only edition, quarto, title page toned and stained, with a few breaks, reinforced on verso with heavy paper along gutter, following leaf with some tears and breaks, ex libris E.M. Cudahy of Loyola University with stamp on page 33 and verso of title, where it has been inked out; stamp of R & L Wilbur of the Gramercy book shop on ffep; later cloth, some water stains, last few leaves browned, a good candidate for restoration, 8 1/2 x 6 1/4 in.

Ranvescroft is remembered in the study of Shakespeare for sniffing out Titus Andronicus as likely not being from the hand of the Bard. His speculation, known as the Ravenscroft tradition, is as follows, "'it the most incorrect and indigested piece in all his works, it seems rather a heap of rubbish then a structure." See Ravenscroft's introduction to the first quarto of Titus Andronics, 1600.

Rare at auction; Wing R-327; ESTC R13534.