Shakespeare, William | The Fourth Folio, an outstanding copy, complete and unsophisticated

Shakespeare, William

Mr William Shakespear's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. Unto which is added, Seven Plays, Never before Printed in Folio … The Fourth Edition. London: Printed [by Robert Roberts, Robert Everingham, and John Macock] for H[enry]. Herringman, and are to be sold by Joseph Knight and Francis Saunders, at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1685

Folio on demy paper (362 x 227 mm). Frontispiece engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout with Ben Jonson's verses below, title-page with type ornament, woodcut initials; portrait and title-page a bit foxed, dedication leaf stained, a little light scattered foxing and staining throughout, occasional tiny rust-holes. Red morocco by Riviere (stamp-signed on verso of front free endpaper), covers panelled with double gilt-rule border and French fillet frame, gilt ornaments at inner and outer corners, spine gilt in seven compartments, lettered in the second and third, others densely tooled, marbled endpapers, gilt edges; corners bumped, joints rubbed and with minor repair. Half red morocco folding-case gilt.

Fourth folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, third setting of the title-page (a cancel), printed by John Macock.

Perhaps the stateliest of the four seventeenth-century folio editions, the Fourth Folio was printed on demy paper, a larger sheet than its three predecessors. Printing was shared among three shops, only one of which had been identified with any certainty until very recently. A brilliant collaborative analysis by ten scholars of the typography of the Fourth Folio using computational bibliography has established that the second section of the volume (King John through Romeo and Juliet) was printed by Robert Everingham and that the third and final section (Timon of Athens through the final spurious play, Tragedy of Locrine), as well as the cancel title-page, was printed by John Macock. The analysis also confirmed what had been first been proposed by Fredson Bowers, that Robert Roberts printed the first section, from the initial title-page through the end of the comedies, The Winter's Tale. (See Lemley, Vogler, Warren, et al., "Everything There Is to Be Learned About Seventeenth-Century Types: Computational Bibliography and the Fourth Folio's Printers," in The Four Shakespeare Folios.)

The first issue of the imprint lists Herringman, Edward Brewster, and Richard Bentley as publishers; the second adds a fourth publisher, Richard Chiswell. The third issue of the imprint, on the cancel title-page as here, names Herringman as the sole publisher, but specifies that the work is "sold by Joseph Knight and Francis Saunders." Greg surmises that this second title was "designed for those copies that Herringman chose to issue through his own booksellers," while Pforzheimer notes that "it is probable that the two settings were simultaneously issued and both titles were available on the same day."

Seventeen sheets in the second section were printed anew in 1700 (the "Fifth" Folio) to make up a shortfall in the original edition. The reprinted sheets lack the box rules at side and bottom. All of the sheets in this copy are from Everingham's original printing.

REFERENCES:

ESTC R24524; Greg III:1121; Pforzheimer 911; Wing S2917; cf. Bartlett 123a; cf. Samuel V. Lemley, ed., The Four Shakespeare Folios: Copy, Print, Paper, Type (Pennsylvania State University Press for Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, 2024)