SHAKESPEARE, William [SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS] ~ Shakespeare’s Sonnets

FIRST EDITION THUS. The Shakespeare Head Press and Basil Blackwell, Stratford-Upon-Avon and Oxford: 1921

Foolscap 8vo., cream cloth-backed paste paper boards, with a decorative design in blue and printed labels to upper cover and spine; outer edges untrimmed; with typographic head and tail pieces throughout; THE BOOK with light browning and offsetting to half title; a few light spots and marks but generally clean throughout, some browning and soiling to the outer edges of boards with rubbing to extremities and bumped to spine tips; spine label a little more darkened than the other; with one small scuff to backstrip; very good. The book is protected in a removable mylar cover. First edition thus of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, one of 410 copies only, of which this copy no. 101. Printed by A. H. Bullen, founder of the press (who also provides a note), the text was published posthumously, after he passed away in 1920. A pencil note present here to title identifies ‘The Dark Lady’ (who appears in Shakespeare’s sonnets) as ‘Elizabeth Bassano’. With the pencil name of the historian A. L. Rowse and the date of 5.11.81, the hand is certainly similar, although the attribution is dubious given that the lady in question is Emilia Bassano - an unlikely mistake for Rowse, who was specifically a scholar of the Elizabethan period. Emilia Bassano was the first woman in England to assert herself as a professional poet. The Forward is here provided by H.F.B Brett-Smith, who begins with a consideration of Bullen’s scholarship, and the work of the press itself, which he calls “no negligible contribution to the cause of good scholarship and good printing in England”. “Bullen had the modesty of the true scholar”, he continues, “the aesthetic value of his books to all lovers of English literature is unimpaired”.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good