Nov 14, 2017 - Sale 2462

Sale 2462 - Lot 248

Price Realized: $ 3,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. The Dramatic Works. Revised by George Steevens. 9 volumes. Half-titles and 96 copper engravings after Reynolds, Fuseli, Northcote, Bunbury, Hamilton, Smirke, Stothard, and many others. 440x335mm; 17 1/4x13 inches. Folio, modern 1/4 black calf over marbled boards, spine in 7 compartments with lettering pieces in 2, very minimal rubbing, a few corners bumped; ex-library copy (Wigan Free Public Library) with ink and blindstamp to verso of titles, usual offsetting from plates to facing leaves, intermittent tanning and foxing. Printed by W. Bulmer for John and Josiah Boydell, George and W. Nicol, 1802

Additional Details

the monumental and celebrated set of shakespeare's illustrated plays. Boydell's most famous and ambitious project, for which a printing house, type foundry, and and ink factory were specially built. The work was sold by subscription and the fine images were commissioned by the greatest English artists of the day. "No Printing Press . . . ever produced a work in nine large volumes in folio so uniformly beautiful"--Franklin, Shakespeare Domesticated, page 47.