“HOW MANY AGES HENCE SHALL THIS OUR LOFTY SCENE BE ACTED OVER”: RARE 1691 SECOND QUARTO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’S JULIUS CAESAR

[SHAKESPEARE, William]. Julius Caesar. A Tragedy. As it is Now Acted At The Theatre Royal. London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and Richard Bentley, 1691. Quarto, modern three-quarter burgundy morocco. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $16,000.

Rare 1691 second quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, with a brilliance fully realized in “the extraordinary lines of Brutus, deep in thought, as he sets in motion one of the most consequential events in Western history. It’s one of Shakespeare’s first great soliloquies,” handsomely bound.

"Something extraordinary was beginning to happen as Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar in the spring of 1599… as if all his energies were self-consciously focused on a new and different kind of invention… The result was a significant breakthrough," one richly expressed in "the extraordinary lines of Brutus, deep in thought, as he sets in motion one of the most consequential events in Western history. It's one of Shakespeare's first great soliloquies and conveys a sense of inwardness new to the stage: 'Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream" (Shapiro, A Year in the Life, 134-5)

"This was the first play by Shakespeare founded on Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives, which appeared in 1579 and was reprinted in 1595. Shakespeare used portions of the lives of Caesar, Antony and Brutus and followed Plutarch very closely" (Bartlett, Mr. William Shakespeare: 112n). Julius Caesar is thought to have been first performed in 1599 and was first printed in the 1623 First Folio. The quarto editions were the first separate printings of the play and are enormously desirable, as very few copies exist in private hands. Sixteen of Shakespeare's plays were first printed in quarto form (1594 to 1622) before they were collected in the 1623 First Folio; of the 20 plays that made their first appearance in the First Folio, only three appeared in quarto form during the 17th-century: Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar (its six quarto editions being a clear indication of its immense popularity). Four undated quarto editions were formerly thought to have been printed shortly after 1684 and before this 1691 edition; it is now believed that they were probably printed between 1695 and 1700. The first and second 1691 quarto editions have "1691" printed on the title page. This, the earlier of those two editions, has a comma after "Herringman" in the title page imprint statement, while the later 1691 edition does not. Wing S2922. Jaggard, 319. Bartlett 117. Spot of sticker residue to front endpaper. Early ink bracket and ink stain.

A few short closed marginal tears to title page. Tiny hole to B2 affecting two words, upper margin slightly worn affecting just a few page numbers, mild embrowning to text. An exceptional and most desirable copy. Rare.