BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATED SET OF KNIGHT’S “PICTORIAL SHAKESPEARE”

SHAKESPEARE. The Pictorial Edition. Edited by Charles Knight. London: Charles Knight, circa 1855. Eight volumes. Octavo, early three-quarter red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards, endpapers and edges. $3000.

Charles Knight’s celebrated Pictorial Shakespeare, handsomely bound and profusely illustrated with hundreds of full-page and in-text wood-engraved illustrations depicting views, characters in costume and stage settings.

"From 1837 [Knight] had been occupied with what he himself probably regarded as his magnum opus. From the time of his boyish experience he had wished to edit Shakespeare… [the Pictorial Shakespeare was] 'the first in the country conceived in the right spirit,' and no future editor can afford to neglect it" (DNB XI: 246). Though first published by Charles Knight and Co. in 1843, the Pictorial Edition was variously reprinted throughout the rest of the century, with several different editions appearing in the 1850s alone. Volume VIII contains a biography of Shakespeare. Jaggard, 528. Bookplate.

Inner hinges expertly reinforced. A handsome set in fine condition.