THE DRAMATIC WORKS AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, with Notes, Original and Selected, and Introductory Remarks to Each Play, By Samuel Weller Singer, F.S.A. and A LIFE OF THE POET By Charles Symmons, D.D. in Two Volumes.

THE DRAMATIC WORKS AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, with Notes, Original and Selected, and Introductory Remarks to Each Play, By Samuel Weller Singer, F.S.A. and A LIFE OF THE POET By Charles Symmons, D.D. in Two Volumes.

(New York: George Dearborn, 1836).

A NICE EARLY AMERICAN SET. “The object then of the present publication is to afford the general reader a correct edition of Shakespeare, accompanied by an abridged commentary, in which all superfluous and refuted explanations and conjectures, and all controversies and squabbles of contending critics should be omitted; and such elucidations only of obsolete words and obscure phrases, and such critical illustrations of the text as might be deemed most generally useful be retained” [preface]. And so it accomplishes its goal. The editor also includes a section on the life of Shakespeare, an elegy written by Ben Jonson, and a reprint of the Bard’s famous will in which he bequeaths to his wife his “second best bed, with the furniture.”. Item #15756

2 volumes. First of the edition and a very early American issue. Engraved frontispiece of the Bard and many black and white engravings throughout. Tall 8vo, three quarter contemporary black straight-grain morocco over green pebbled cloth boards, the spine with raised bands gilt lined and decorated, lettered in gilt in two compartments, marbled endpapers. 522; 596pp. A very handsome and attractive early American issuance of Shakespeare’s works, with only light aging. A very well preserved set.

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