The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare; in Six Volumes. Adorn'd with Cuts... By N. Rowe.
"In importance and interest, this edition ranks second perhaps to the editio princeps. It is the first manual text, the first to present a biography of the poet, the first to bear an editor's name, the first to possess illustrations, and the first of the endless army of editions in octavo." -Jaggard
THE EXTRAORDINARILY INFLUENTIAL ROWE SHAKESPEARE: The first octavo edition, the first illustrated edition, and the first critically edited edition. The second issue.
We now recognize the Rowe edition "as the first critically edited version of Shakespeare… [It] was a radical departure. Cheifly, it opened the way for the enormous editorial and critical labors by which Shakespeare was to become so deeply absorbed within the consciousness of Western culture during the centuries that followed. Rowe's was the first edition of Shakespeare's plays to employ 'modern' spelling, and consistent act and scence divisions. Other innovations were the lists of dramatis personae prefacing each play, the frequent indications of scene locations, the additions of many 'missing' exit and entrance directions, the 'correction' of punctuation, and the provision of the editor's name.
"Rowe's edition also included the first formal biography of Shakespeare… [T]his remained the standard biography until Edmund Malone's major additions appeared in 1790. Rowe's text made Shakespeare more accessible and intelligible to readers, a feature aided by Tonson's decision to publish the work, not in a large and bulky singe folio edition, but in a six-volume octavo format. All this, however, is by way of prelude to noting another radical feature of the Tonson/Rowe edition of Shakespeare--its illustrations" (Young, Hamlet and the Visual Arts).
With 43 engravings (one prefacing each play), additionally with engraving of the Stratford monument in the "Life" and with frontispiece engraving in volume I only (issued with the same engraving as the frontispiece of each volume).
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1709. Octavo, nineteenth-century three-quarter morocco gilt; all edges gilt. Six volumes. Occasional light foxing. A beautiful set, very handsomely bound.
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