Lamb, Charles

12mo (172 x 105mm.), 2 volumes, FIRST EDITION (with imprint of the printer "Thomas Davison" on the p.236 of volume 1 and the address "Hanway Street" in the adverts in volume 2), engraved frontispiece and 18 plates, with 3pp. publisher's adverts at the back of volume 2, contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, numbered on spine, collector's brown morocco-backed box, expertly rebacked preserving original backstrips, edges of boards worn with minor chips, some light browning to boards and endpapers, interior hinges split (2)

Osborne p.905

Although the collection was published under Charles' name alone, it was his older sister Mary who contributed the majority of the stories, while Charles worked on the six tragedies and half of the Preface. 

In adapting the plays into narrative prose more suitable for children, the Lambs hoped particularly to engage young girls, writing in the Preface, "for young ladies too it has been my intention to chiefly write, because boys are generally permitted the use of their father's libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently having the best scenes of Shakespear by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book..."

The plates were designed by William Mulready, and often said to have been engraved by William Blake.