Extremely scarce : Only one copy having appeared at auction in the last 40 years

Looney, J. Thomas ~ Shakespeare Identified

Cecil Palmer, London : 1920

The First UK printing published by Cecil Palmer, London in 1920 of this seminal work. 8vo., burnt orange cloth, lettered with double-rule in black to upper cover and spine; publisher's device to centre of upper board; together in the original black and white wrapper priced '21/- net' to the spine; black and white frontis showing Edward de Vere, plus four further plates on glossy paper; The BOOK a bright, square copy with slight nicking and pushing to the spine tips; light even toning throughout; just starting to crack at the gutter in one or two places but the binding remains very tight ; else a Very Good++ or better copy, with the attractive bookplate of Maxwell Steinhardt, designed by Rockwell Kent, to the front paste-down; The WRAPPER is in Very Good++ condition with some light even shelf-wear and darkening along the folds; residue of a small rectangular sticker to the lower spine ; some rubbing, nicking and light chipping to the extremities; In completely unrestored condition, and very seldom found at all. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. John Thomas Looney (1870 –1944) was born into a family of methodists, and grew up in a strongly evangelical family. Determined to become a minister himself, it was while he was studying at the Chester Diocesan College that he suddenly lost his faith, and instead became interested in the 'Religion of Humanity', a secular group created by Auguste Comte. Though short-lived in the UK, the British branch of the religion (the Church of Humanity), gave special prominance to the works of Shakespeare, and Looney subsequently devoted many years to research into the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. This continued throughout the First World War and, in 1920, 'Shakespeare Identified' was published. In it, Looney argues that Shakespeare's plays were actually authored by Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. Tracing his findings back to a sealed document in the British Museum, he claims that 'William Shakespeare' is simply a pseudonymn and, relying on a series of sources and his own in-depth interpretations of Shakespeare's plays and poetry, he presents an in-depth analysis of many of the known works in order to strengthen his arguments. In 'The Tempest', for example, he cites the over-use of conjunctions and auxiliary verbs at the end of lines in order to disprove the cited authorship, which is neither Shakespeare or Oxford but instead an unknown author mistakenly added to the canon. He also delves into Shakespeare's upbringing, his lack of education, as well as exploring the events and characters within the works themselves, believing them to undoubtedly have been based on real-life places and figures. though he does note in his introduction that 'the problem is not, at bottom, purely literary. That is to say, its solution does not depend wholly upon the extent of the investigator's knowledge of literature nor upon the soundness of his literary judgement'. Following this groundbreaking publication, Looney, together with George Greenwood, established 'The Shakespeare Fellowship', an organisation designed to investigate the authorship of Shakespeare's plays even further. Debates and discussions exploded, and Looney faced a huge wave of criticism from reviewers, who claimed that the work was 'a sad waste of print and paper' (TLS) and 'all the paraphernalia of scholarship but little of its critical spirit' (The Outlook). Many of the arguments came to a head in the 1940s, with Looney's mass of followers including Sigmund Freud, who had first read Looney's book in 1923. Even today, the book is widely considered to be one of the most revolutionary books on Shakespeare to have ever been written, with John Galsworthy referring to it as one of the 'best detective stories' he had ever read. A swathe of significant contributors have followed in Looney's wake, including Charlton Ogburn, Roger Stritmatter, Mark Anderson, Richard Roe, and more recently Alexander Waugh, though many of the arguments remain the same as when this book was first published in the 1920s. Genuinely rare. We can trace only one copy having appeared at auction within the last 40 years.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good ++
JACKET: Very Good++