"ALMOST EQUAL IN IMPORTANCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE TO THE FIRST FOLIO OF SHAKESPEARE."
Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gentlemen. Never Printed Before, And now published by the Authours Originall Copies. London: Humphrey Robinson and Humphrey Moseley, 1647, folio.
THE FIRST FOLIO OF BEAUMONT & FLETCHER, THE THIRD GREAT FOLIO OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AFTER BEN JONSON (1616) AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1623).
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FIRST COLLECTION EDITION of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, like Shakespeare's, published posthumously. This first folio contains 36 previously unpublished plays. This folio came out when theatres were idled in the 1640s by the Puritan governments during the height of the English Civil War and so the publication of this was a huge political statement at the time since the publisher Humphrey Moseley was a staunch Royalist who most likely printed this as a substitute for theatre attendance, of course later to be performed following the restoration in 1660. Grolier describes the extremely interesting printing process of this important first folio, suggesting that no less than 8 printers are believed to have been actually employed in order to expedite the issuance of this book, most likely because of the politics of the era.
As Allibone remarks, "Beaumont bringing the ballast of judgement, Flether the sail of phantasy... He who has not perused Beaumont and Fletcher can have no complete idea of the riches of English poetry" (Allibone I, 150-151). This first folio is the first printing of the majority of their works, only one play (Wild-Goose Chase) was not included in this folio and that's because the manuscript had been lost; this was separately printed six years later.
This first folio is practically impossible to find at retail for anywhere under $10,000 which still seems rather inexpensive given just how significant this book is, being one of the three "First Folio[s]" of Elizabethan theatre, with Shakespeare's first folio of course being one of the most expensive books to ever sell, being worth around $10 million. Our copy offered here for sale of Beaumont & Fletcher's first folio is in a contemporary binding, sympathetically restored & rebacked, preserving as much originality as possible. To find this in a largely original 17th century English binding is also nothing short of remarkable.
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Provenance:
From the collection of Car. I. Taboris, ink stamp to blank ffep verso, likely circa the early 20th century. Some of the books from his collection have previously sold at Christie's in 2001.
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Size: 222 x 325 mm (approx.)
Condition:
[A1-A4, a1-d2, E2, f1-g2, B1-K4, L2, 2A1-S4, 3A1-3X4, 4A1-4I4, 5A1-5R4, 5S6, 5T4-5X4]
i.e. [51pp], (75pp), (143pp), (167pp), (71pp), (172pp) - excl. blanks
Contemporary full calf binding, quite likely original, rebacked, seemingly fairly early, in a nice sympathetic manner. Boards lined in blind in a very typical English manner, recalling the beautiful early English bindings like those from the Caxton period. Some shelf and edge wear with minor losses at corners, as typical. Joints and hinges secure with both boards securely attached, the binding secure, with slight shelf lean, remaining vertically stable on the shelf. No external identification marks. No attached bookplates.
First third of main text block in near fine to fine condition. First few preliminaries with some leaf edge repair, title page with some loss at outer edge as pictured, as well as the original preliminary blank leaf. Some minor dampstaining in places. Minor wormholing in bottom right corner, not entering the text until 2G1, but only affecting small parts of letters not rendering any text illegible and not losing any sense until towards the end of the book. Causing some minor text loss from 2O1 onwards. Expertly executed leaf edge repairs to the second half of the text block using Japanese Kozo paper, with progressively larger text loss from 5Q4-5X4 at the right leaf edges, the largest being leaf 5X4 with 39x49mm, others smaller. Some contemporary writing to verso of 2D1 discussing the play The Noble Gentleman, to verso of 2P1 discussing The False One, verso of 2S4 discussing The Chances, verso of 3C3 discussing The Loyal Subject, verso of 3I3 discussing The Lovers Progres, verso of 5M4 discussing The Womans Prize or The Tamer Tamed, verso of 5Q2 discussing Loves Cure or The Martial Maid.
3M2 mispaginated as 3M3 as printed but the 3M gathering does collate as complete. 51pp of preliminaries of 53, lacking frontispiece and so first or second state indeterminate, endpapers replaced. This copy ends with The Honest Mans Fortune and so lacks the 8 plays which follow this as well as the epigraph and dedication, the present sections all collate as complete according to the WorldCat copy, the collation for which is provided above, the gatherings being in twos, fours, and sixes (mostly fours). This book is almost always incomplete, usually to significant degrees, and here we find it largely complete up until 5X4 where we do here lack some of the final plays.
[Wing B1581; ESTC R22900; Pforzheimer 53; Greg III,1013; Grolier/English 28].
