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Cloth-backed boards, 4to, 29 x 23 cm, 4 volumes, 1752 pp, numerous plates. Bibliographical Society [London] Illustrated monographs no. XXIV. The list of plays has been arranged according to the supposed date of publication of the earliest surviving edition. Vol. 1. Stationers' records. Plays to 1616: nos. 1-349.-Vol. 2. Plays, 1617-1689: nos. 350-836. Latin plays. Lost plays.-Vol. 3. Collections. Appendix. Reference lists.-Vol. 4. Introduction. Additions. Corrections. Index of titles. Volumes I and II contain descriptions of all dramatic compositions written before the end of 1642 and printed before the beginning of 1700, together with those written after 1642 but printed before the beginning of 1660. Volume III begins with descriptions of the collected editions arranged alphabetically under forty-one headings. Of these the most famous are those of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. The complicated story of the 1619 and 1623 collections of Shakespeare and the yet more complicated story of the Jonson folios are here set out in masterly fashion. Volume IV includes an introduction, additions, corrections, and an index of titles; the introduction (with its own index) extending over 174 pages. It gives an explanation of the scope and limits of the work and a justification of its method. Appended are six excursuses on the dating and ordering of plays, on titles, quotation, formulas of collation, typographical style and on copyright and the interpretation of imprints. Breslauer and Folter : "Sir Walter Greg's bibliography, a labor of sixty years, had a seminal influence on the bibliographical description of books in the English-speaking world. In it he fully applied the principles of 'critical' bibliography postulated by him, i.e., 'the study of books as tangible objects'. His work examines the materials from which they are made, traces their place and mode of origin, and investigates the relation of edition to edition." Boards a little rubbed with some minor marks, some lower corners bumped, some wear to spine-ends of volume ! And foot of spine of volume 4, endpapers slightly yellowed, contents otherwise Very Good. Seller Inventory # ABE-62016
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