The Tragedy of Locrine, The Eldest Son of King Brutus. Printed in the Year 1709 by Nicholas Rowe and attributed to William Shakespeare.
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This printing of The Tragedy of Locrine was part of the first illustrated (and first edited) edition of the works of William Shakespeare in 1709 by Nicholas Rowe, printed by Tonson. Rowe is considered to be the first editor of Shakespeare, and his 1709 printing was the first edition of Shakespeare's works to follow the four folio editions of 1623, 1632, 1663, and 1685. Rowe based his text on the Fourth Folio of Shakespeare's works which many consider to be "corrupted" and therefore many of the errors of his text persisted through the various 18th century editions of Shakespeare's works.
The Tragedy of Locrine is a particularly interesting work for its controversial attribution to William Shakespeare. It was first printed in 1595 where on the title page the author was listed as "W.S." It was then included in the third and fourth folios, though was not included in the first and second folios. Many scholars regard this attribution of "W.S." to indeed have been to William Shakespeare, as he was in London at this time while writing Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other scholars have proposed that Shakespeare only edited the play or was at the very least involved in its production, and some others completely disregard Shakespeare's attribution to authorship. Notably, Alexander Pope did not include it in his collection of Shakespeare, and neither did Lewis Theobald, though many other 18th and 19th century editions did include it.
Nowadays, it is part of the so-called Shakespearean Apocrypha - works which may or may not be by him for which there is no unanimous consensus. This example offered here for sale of what is essentially the third edition of this Shakespeare Apocryphal play, is complete with the beautiful illustrated plate; the first example of Shakespeare being illustrated. It is certainly very rare to find separate from the set of Rowe's works, and we could trace only one much later example of this having been offered for sale - a 1734 edition which went to auction with an estimate of £200-£300, but of course did not bear the significance of this edition for the aforementioned reasons.
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Size: 130 x 200 mm (approx.)
Condition:
Modern red hardback binding, probably early to mid 20th century. Retains some earlier potentially original blanks, together with some newer endpapers. Binding with a little discolouration with the spine slightly sunned. Some light superficial scratches etc. This play occupied the final part of the sixth (and final) volume of Rowe's set and so the pagination runs consecutively from 3270 through to 3324, collated as complete with the beautiful illustrated plate to the verso of pp.1.
