Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies by William Shakespeare

Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies by William Shakespeare. Jaggard & Blount, London, 1623. First edition, first folio, pp. XVIII, 908. Dark calfskin leather spine with titles in gilt, double gilt decorative rolls and gilt leaf ornament. Dark brown endpapers with gilt edges. Elaborate title page, frontispiece with first-state portrait, complete edition with leaves intact, containing Troilus and Cressida and its prologue, Romeo and Juliet ending on Gg. Roman and italic text types, cursive for headings, various larger romans and cursives in preliminaries. Text in double columns, 66 lines, bold headlines and catchwords, pages box-ruled, woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials. The first authorized edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and in terms of editorial theory the closest we have or are likely to have to any final published text authorized by the author, in the sense that it is the published text authorized after the author's death by his friends and closest colleagues, such as John Heminges and Henry Condell, the people who knew his plays best because they performed them.