Jonson, Ben

Folio (13 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.; 335 x 210 mm). Engraved title-page by William Hole with the form of imprint  found in all large-paper copies ("Will Stansby"; Greg's variant *1), woodcut headpieces and initials; lacking blank ¶1, a single small wormhole at upper fore-edge margin of final four gatherings (Nnnn1–Qqqq4), a very few scattered marginal stains. Contemporary black turkey morocco, the covers paneled in gilt with elaborate gilt-tooled cornerpieces and with a central medallion of Pyramus and Thisbe, smooth spine paneled in gilt with interlacing foliate wreaths, plain endpapers, gilt edges; ribbon ties lost, spine faded, extremities lightly rubbed. Black morocco folding-case.

J. B. Plowman — Britwell Court Library (Sotheby’s London, 8 February 1922, lot 397) — Templeton Crocker. acquisition: Seven Gables, 1959

STC 14751; ESTC S126501; Greg III: 1070; Pforzheimer 559. For the binding: Nixon, Five Centuries of English Bookbinding 25

First collected edition. An exceptional copy of Jonson's plays, masques, entertainments, and non-dramatic poetry, second in importance only to Shakespeare’s folios as a seventeenth-century publication of English drama. The publication of a collected "Workes" in folio, its title-page adorned with Classical motifs, was a typically audacious move by Jonson, especially because he included in it nine plays written for the commercial theater. This marked a crucial step in establishing the literary credentials of the public theater, which was often dismissed as ephemeral at the time; one contemporary responded to the publication with a distich: "Pray tell me Ben, where does the mystery lurk | What others call a play, you call a work?" Jonson's concern in claiming the merit due to his plays is in striking contrast to Shakespeare, who famously showed little apparent interest in the literary afterlife of his dramatic works. Thus Jonson's 1616 folio provided the vital precedent and model to Heminges and Condell when they came to prepare the Shakespeare folio that followed seven years later, for which Jonson himself provided commendatory verses. (Shakespeare's name appears twice in Jonson's folio, listed among the principal players for Every Man in his Humour and Seianus.)

The splendid binding is one of a handful known with the centerpiece depicting the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe, the ill-fated lovers from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (The stamp was misidentified in the Britwell Court catalogue as representing Lucretia falling on a sword.) On the trunk of the tree in the medallion are the initials IS with a key, but it is not clear if they are the cipher of a designer, toolcutter, bookseller, or binder.

Quire G, quire Yy, Qqqq3v–Qqqqr4r, and the section-titles to Cynthias Revels (P5r) and Poëtaster (Z4r) are all in the appropriate large-paper settings, with all states conforming to the listing given by Pforzheimer.