Vega Carpio, Lope Félix de

Las Comedias del Famoso Poeta ... recopiladas por Bernardo Grassa agora nuevamente impressas y emendadas. Milan: for Giovanni Battista Bidelli, 1619



8vo (6 ½ x 4 ¼ in.; 165 x 108 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title; fore- and lower edge of title mended without loss, minor dampstains in first few quires, last quire misbound, page 619 (misnumbered "169") laid down on free endpaper without loss, some stains and soiling on last 3 pages. Old vellum, manuscript title on spine.Green half morocco drop-box.

Franz Pollack Parnau (20^th-century bookplate)

Heredia 2369; Penney, HSA, p. 585; Salva I, p. 537; Vázquez i Estévez 264; see M. Parker, Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age (1998), pp. 231 ff.

A later edition, but still of the author's lifetime, of the primera parte of the comedias, first published in Zaragoza in 1604, the entire set of which was ultimately published in twenty-eight parts. The present edition contains eleven loas and twelves comedias but omits the entremeses.

Widely recognized as the creator of the comedia, the Spanish national drama of the Golden Age and the rough equivalent, both chronologically and artistically, of the Elizabethan theatre in England, Lope (1562-1635) was a prolific author to whom are attributed ca. 1800 titles, though today we are aware of 726 and have the texts to 470 of these. His works were popular with producers from the time he was seventeen, but his first publication only appeared in 1604.