Collection of Poems, Viz: I. Venus and Adonis. II. The Rape of Lucrece. III. The Passionate Pilgrim. IV. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musick.

London: Bernard Lintott, 1709. Full Description:

SHAKESPEARE, William. A Collection of Poems, Viz. I. Venus and Adonis. II. The Rape of Lucrece. III. The Passionate Pilgrim. IV. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musick. London: Bernard Lintott, [1709].

First edition, first issue of the second collection of "Poems" (the first being 1640) and the first to include "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece." One small octavo volumes (6 3/4 x 4 inches; 170 x 103 mm). [4], [1]-155, [1, blank] pp. With four divided title-pages dated respectively 1630, 1632, 1599 and 1599 and "Price bound One Shilling Six-pence" on main title-page. With woodcut vignettes with tree motif on part-titles and woodcut initials.

Full contemporary speckled sheep, rebacked to style. Boards ruled in blind. Spine lettered in gilt. Corners renewed. Some nearly invisible professional repairs to bottom blank margin throughout, never affecting text. Two previous owner's bookplates on front pastedown and front free endpaper. A small ownership stamp on front pastedown. Overall a very good copy. Chemised and housed in a quarter red morocco slipcase.

Although this is the "second collected edition" of poems, after the Benson 1640 edition, Benson excluded the long poems Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucree which are included in the present edition.

This present first issue with the early dates of 1630, 1632, 1599 and 1599 on the four part titles can be distinguished from the second issue which has the date 1609 on all four of the part titles. A second volume was printed later. Jaggard only knew of the first volume of this first issue, stating that the two-volume issue appeared in 1710 with the early dates given on the part-titles revised to 1709 (Jaggard's error for 1609). Ford gives a more detailed account of the publication: beginning with the initial printing of the first volume only; followed 'shortly after' by the addition of the second volume with a general title; followed by a publication of both volumes with the subtitle imprints revised to 'Printed in the year 1609'.

The Lintott edition was evidently an opportunistic enterprise occasioned by the publication of Rowe's edition of Shakespeare's plays by Tonson in 1709. Tonson had rights only to the Fourth Folio plays, and Lintott evidently responded to demand for a new edition of the poems, as did the printer Curll, whose 1710 edition of the poems is occasionally found making a supplementary volume to Rowe's edition. While Curll's one-volume edition of the poems came to be seen as the natural companion to the Rowe plays, Lintott's edition takes primacy. Curll's version used the Benson version for his reprinting, making the Lintott edition more true to the original and thus more desirable.

Ford, pp 37-39. Jaggard, p. 434.

HBS 69083.

$25,000.