"MEN'S EVIL MANNERS LIVE IN BRASS; THEIR VIRTUES WE WRITE IN WATER": SHAKESPEARE'S HENRY VIII, EXTRACTED FROM THE SECOND FOLIO, 1632
SHAKESPEARE. [The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight]. London: Tho. Cotes for Robert Allot, 1632. Folio (9 by 12-3/4 inches), period-style three-quarter calf gilt, red morocco spine labels, marbled boards.
Fourteen original leaves from the Second Folio, containing Shakespeare's dramatization of Henry VIII's reign, handsomely bound.
The four folios of Shakespeare are the first four editions of Shakespeare's collected plays. These were the only collected editions printed in the 17th century (a 1619 attempt at a collected edition in quarto form was never completed). The Second Folio, like the First Folio of 1623, contains 36 plays, all the plays that are considered to be wholly or in part by Shakespeare (with the exception of Pericles, which was added to the Third Folio edition of 1663). "The folios are incomparably the most important work in the English language" (W.A. Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue). A new group of investors published the Second Folio collection of Shakespeare's plays, which, with some changes (intentional and otherwise), largely reprinted the First Folio (1623) page for page. It is estimated that no more than 1000 copies of the Second Folio were printed. Leaves [v5]-[y6] contain Shakespeare's Henry VIII. "Unlike every other Shakespearean history play, Henry VIII features no battle scenes, sword fights or murders. Instead of bloodshed, it offers the coronation of a queen, two different trials, a masked dance, an execution (dispatched offstage), a royal christening and plenty of intrigue simmering around the throne of a temperamental Tudor monarch" (New York Times). A cannon shot during a 1613 performance of the play started the fire that destroyed the original Globe Theater.
The facsimile title page exactly reproduces the title page of the Second Folio copy from which this play came. See Jaggard, 496. Minor marginal dampstaining to bottom edges. About-fine condition.