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

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 A. Clark, 1674. Slim quarto (8-1/2 by 6-1/2 inches), 19th-century full red morocco, gilt- and blind-panelled boards each with large central gilt arabesque, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, all edges gilt: pp. 60. Housed in a custom chemise and half leather clamshell box.

Extraordinarily rare third (or possibly second) quarto edition of Macbeth, printed one year after the virtually unobtainable first quarto, handsomely bound in rich red morocco gilt by Broca.

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 D’Avenant, who was rumored to have been Shakespeare's illegitimate son (the playwright was known to frequent the tavern owned by John D’Avenant 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 D’Avenant’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 D’Avenant’s production. In 1674 the first full edition of D’Avenant’s text appeared and both Philip Chetwin and A. Clark published quarto editions; neither carried an edition statement, and their order is uncertain. Both of these printings include revised versions of several speeches, two new scenes which were entirely D’Avenant’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) D’Avenant was relatively faithful to Shakespeare’s text. The Chetwin edition is often thought to precede the Clark by a matter of weeks or months, making our copy the second D’Avenant edition and the third quarto edition overall. However, Pforzheimer notes that Clark owned the copyright to D’Avenant’s text as of August, 1674, when he sold it to Martin and Herringman. Chetwin’s 1674 edition may therefore have been an unauthorized rival to Clark’s, immediately following it to press and attempting to capitalize on its popularity. Whether this copy is the second or third quarto edition, both 1674 editions, and indeed all Restoration quartos of Macbeth, are now extraordinarily rare; Pforzheimer did not own anything earlier than the 1687 D’Avenant reprint, and only a handful of 17th-century printings have appeared on the market in 25 years. Mispagination as issued without loss of text. Jaggard, 381. Bartlett 166. Wing S-2931. See Pforzheimer 914.

Text very fresh with only small marginal stain (31), tiny marginal rust-hole (60), unobtrusively washed throughout. An exceptional copy, fine and complete, splendidly bound by Broca.