“IS THIS A DAGGER WHICH I SEE BEFORE ME?”: AN EXCEPTIONAL RARITY, THE 1674 QUARTO OF MACBETH, DAVENANT’S VERSION

SHAKESPEARE, William [D'AVENANT, William]. Macbeth, a Tragedy: With all the Alterations, Amendments, Additions, and New Songs. As it is now Acted at the Duke's Theatre. London: Printed for P. Chetwin, 1674. Slim quarto, (6-3/4 by 8-1/4 inches), period-style full red morocco with elaborately gilt decorated spine and boards, raised bands; pp. 66.

Extraordinarily rare second quarto and first Davenant edition of Macbeth, printed one year after the virtually unobtainable first quarto.

Appearing first in the 1623 collected First Folio of Shakespeare, Macbeth was not published separately until the first quarto edition of 1673, which was primarily a reprint of the folio text. The poet and dramatist William Davenant, who was rumored to have been Shakespeare’s illegitimate son (the playwright was known to frequent the tavern owned by John Davenant and his wife, “a very beautiful woman of a good wit,” during his journeys between London and Stratford), began work on an adaptation of Macbeth as early as 1666. By 1673 Davenant’s version was enjoying theatrical success in London and in response to this the first quarto edition of the play was issued, which included three additional witches’ songs from Davenant’s production. In 1674 the first full edition of Davenant’s text appeared and both Philip Chetwin and A. Clark published quarto editions. Both of these printings include revised versions of several speeches, two new scenes which were entirely Davenant’s own creation, and the three songs which first appeared in the 1673 quarto. Even so, compared to other early editors (most infamously Nathan Tate, who gave King Lear a happy ending) Davenant was relatively faithful to Shakespeare’s text. This Chetwin edition is often thought to precede the Clark edition issued the same year by a matter of weeks or months, making the present copy the first Davenant edition and the second quarto edition overall. Both 1674 editions, and indeed all Restoration quartos of Macbeth, are now extraordinarily rare; Pforzheimer did not own anything earlier than the 1687 Davenant reprint, and only a handful of 17th-century printings have appeared on the market in 25 years. Pagination irregular as issued without loss of text. Wing S-2930. Jaggard, 381. Bartlett 166. See Pforzheimer 914.

Small expertly repaired tears to inner blank margin of title page, last leaf a little narrow, generally clean and fresh with generous margins. Near-fine condition, most scarce and desirable.